Rx for Procrastination - Brief Article

Automotive Manufacturing & Production, Feb, 2001

If you surveyed any 10, 100, or 1000 people as to their favorite day of the week, the hands down winner would undoubtedly be--tomorrow. That's when that big project will be started, the old one finished, the solution to a problem found, the important decision made.

To one degree or another, we are all guilty of procrastination. We're not "in the mood," we lack the necessary information that will enable us to act, there's a deskful of detail work to be attended to, Jack--who is crucial to the job--is out ill, or traveling, or unavailable for some reason or other, etc. Before you know it, presto! Tomorrow has turned into yesterday.

The remedy? Two tablespoons of self -discipline and a gallon of perseverance. Some guidelines to counter procrastination:

* Fight one enemy at a time. Pick one area where procrastination plagues you-- and conquer it. It may be a predisposition to put off beginning a job...or answering correspondence...or turning down requests for your help. Whatever it is, change it. If you find yourself searching for excuses for not making decisions, for example, force yourself to make them quickly. If you hate answering letters, drive yourself to replying to just one; each succeeding one will seem a bit less formidable, and with every letter answered, you will build the momentum necessary to answer them all.

* Focus on one problem at time. Learn to compartmentalize your jobs. Pretend or the time being that all you have to do is job A. Get it done and confront job B with the same single-mindedness.

* Don't duck the most difficult problems. That just insures the hardest part will be left when you're most tired. Get the big one done and it's downhill from them on.

* Don't be paralyzed by a quest for perfection. If you put everything off until you've checked with 20 people and subjected it to a microscopic inspection, you'll get little, or nothing, done.