Why is it so easy to start procrastinating but so very difficult to stop? Often we begin to procrastinate with the idea of just taking a 5 minute break only to find that our 5 minute break somehow turns into several wasted hours.
One of the most effective ways to minimize procrastination is to become aware of your procrastination triggers. These are the specific actions that cause you to start procrastinating in the first place. Here’s a real world example that illustrates the concept of procrastination triggers.
For me, Saturday morning is ‘domestic time’. I usually begin each Saturday morning by doing my washing, cleaning the house and going to the gym. Last week however, instead of doing what I needed to do, I procrastinated and was shocked to find that I had somehow wasted the entire morning watching reruns of the TV show ‘Friends’. At the end of this procrastination session I asked myself a very useful question…
What was the specific action that led me to start procrastinating?
When I asked this question, I realised that the action that led me to start procrastinating was ‘turning the TV on while having breakfast’. This simple innocuous action had somehow led me to waste an entire morning!
In this respect ‘turning on the TV while having breakfast’ can be seen to be a procrastination trigger. It was the specific action that led me to start procrastinating. Now that I’m aware of this trigger, I can easily avoid it and by doing so I can also avoid Saturday morning procrastination.
So next time you find yourself procrastinating, stop and ask, "What was the specific action that led me to start procrastinating?" This will help you to identify your own procrastination triggers.
When you become aware of your procrastination triggers they are generally quite easy to avoid and each time you avoid a procrastination trigger you also avoid losing the most precious commodity of all – time.
Until next time,
Dare To Dream!
Anthony
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