Procrastination: How to treat it like a little b*tch!
“How many times do I have to tell you to stop procrastinating?” Or “This is definitely not something that you should procrastinate on!” Or how about “Procrastination is never going to get you anywhere!
Chances are very good that you have heard this come from someone else’s mouth before as “advice”. While they are trying to be helpful, most times people really aren’t. What I’m trying to say is that you have to procrastinate. As a matter of fact, it is almost impossible not to procrastinate. Even some of the most productive and famous people on the planet take time out of their days to procrastinate; some examples fall just short of googling “Procrastination” and “Leonardo Da Vinci”… what I’m really trying to say is, you NEED to procrastinate. It is a simple fact of life. We are hardwired as a species to procrastinate. HOWEVER! It is important to have planned procrastination.
There is an exceptionally narrow line between expectation and reality… if you set the expectation that you are going to never procrastinate… I guarantee you are going to fail… give up on the idea and realize that if you had just allowed yourself a little procrastination time that you may not be in the spot of trouble that you are currently trying to figure out how to “cure” in regards to your procrastination woes. Set the expectation that you are going to procrastinate and manage the manage the expectation; not the act. Don’t allow it to overwhelm you. What I’m establishing is that we have this great motivator to start things in the human race, finishing them on the other hand, well… there are many other things that we could be starting instead! If you allow yourself to slip and fall every now and again, or even account for falling, allow yourself to fall through the procrastination cracks, you’re going to set yourself up for an a very productive year.
Procrastinate! There is no better cure to becoming more productive!
How? Allow yourself a little time! I personally find that after I come home from the office; I sit down on the couch for twenty minutes and allow my mind to wander. Allow myself a little rest and relaxation — a little planned. It is important to note that I’ve said planned procrastination however. Allowing yourself to get carried away, turn on a little television, and sit in front of the TV for the rest of the evening is certainly not going to keep your productivity up. Now, if you’re reading this I’m assuming that you already know this and don’t need to be told this but it is absolutely insane that amount of time that people spend in front of television sets.
An excellent resource I would recommend to anyone is Darren Hardy’s “The compound effect” it is a short read but drives an incredible point home. That everything you do on a daily basis is made up of small habits. These habits compound over time and give you the result that you ultimately designed very early on, even years prior to the process.
The average American spends 5 hours in front of a television or some video feed every single day. That’s insane when you compound this over a period of 10 years! Thank about it:
(5 hours of TV) x (365 days a year) X (10 years) = 18250 hours
(18250 hours) / (24 hours per day) = 760 days
(760 days) / (365 day in a year) = 2.08 years
That is the average American! I want you to think about what you could accomplish if you just 10% of that time (which works out to just short of 76 days or 1823 hours), what you could get done! When you consider that it takes on average of just over 1000 hours to write a novel you could have written and marketed the same manuscript to publication in 1/10th the time that the average American will spend in front of a television set!
This is also an incredible method to determining what is productive and what is not. Take for example anything you do in life, maybe it your social media involvement, time out of the office chatting to co-workers on your way back to your desk, or even spending a few extra minutes with your friend on lunch. Take the amount of time you spend doing those things, and multiply by the number of hours, days, weeks, and months that it will cost you in your lifespan.
Carefully consider the time you are spending, compound it over a 10 year period. Don’t like the time you’ve spending, change it the activity!
Plan your procrastination, in the same 10 year period, if you allow yourself 20 minutes a day to clear your brain, relax, and get into a state of mind that will allow you to continue on with the next productive task at hand. The same math works out to about to about 51 days over the same 10 year period. Now thinking about spending 51 days on the couch over the same 10 years is still a very large number, take into consideration that it is to relax your mind, plan your procrastination, and allow you to wander off into a zen-like state that may not only allow you to focus on the next task at hand and the best way to get it done. It may also reveal ideas in your subconscious about new things to create, develop, or exercise your creativity over which may create a world of abundance for you that you may have never had without taking the time to sit down and let your mind wander through the depths of you subconscious.
Allowing yourself to meditate is not only going to have an incredible impact on your personal productivity, it will allow you to better focus on the other things that are important to you as well. Come up with new solutions, find new answers to topics that have been troubling you. It still amazes me what my subconscious will produce when I allow it time to wander. It has created amazing business ideas, given me news ways to organize my day, and allowed me to spend more time with my family as I find/ discover new ways to become more efficient at work or at home!
Procrastination isn’t taboo, planned procrastination can uncover incredible potential you have yet to discover!
Take Action in 3 simple steps:
- Set the expectation that planned procrastination is not only natural, but that it is going to happen, it’s not something we do as an exception; procrastination is the rule.
- Want to know what is costing you years of missed production opportunities? Take the average time, and find how much time over a 10 year period you are spending! Have a problem? Eliminate the time drain!
- Explore your subconscious, plan at least 20 minutes a day of procrastination. It will open up doorways to your subconscious and ultimately create a more productive you!
Check out our FREE E-Book “30 Sales and Marketing Mindset Hacks” on the home page of www.salestraininc.com for more great tips on how to maximize your sales, and crush your competition!
Matthew Gourley is the Owner of Salestraininc and has been teaching Salespeople & Business Owners how to dominate their marketplace, grow their incomes, and crush their competition! Contact his office at 403–331–5229 to do the same!
