You are asked to complete a project for work. There are three weeks to complete said project. Truthfully it isn’t something that you love the idea of doing. None the less you vow to complete this one on time instead of that last-minute-jam-everything-into-a-day-completion-deadline you normally fall into, aka procrastination, at it’s finest.
But, you do have 3 weeks, and right now there are other pressing issues and more work to be done, so, really, you can start it next week.
Next week rolls around and you are so proud of yourself, you have commenced the work on this project. You dedicated 2 hours to it. Sure, you probably only completed 15 minutes worth of work, I mean with all the emails that popped up, the toilet break you had to run to and the 3 phone calls that you HAD to answer, you didn’t get to spend a lot of actual time on the project. You vow to do it tomorrow and dedicate your time to getting a solid chunk done.
You know the rest of the story – despite your best thought out intentions you add this to the pile of last minute tasks. With that of course you convince yourself that you work best under pressure.
Let me ask you this – if you create 90% plus of your work under pressure, how do you know if you work better otherwise?
This could be a thesis on the effects of stress, lack of sleep, air time your brain space is taken up by ‘thinking’ about completing the job and the like, however you have heard it all before and really don’t need convincing.
The truth is, procrastination does not allow you to be the most thorough and complete in your work. You may complete the work fast, which is the trap that often occurs – I mean what else can you do? It has to be done and you know that.
There are many aspects that can assist you, largely involving mindset, reviewing behaviour patterns & habits, (all of which I provide more information on via my website) however the quickest, most effective tip right now is to not over do it.
Don’t expect yourself to complete a pile of work 3 weeks out when your default habit takes you to the last minute. Start by creating 30 minute time slots, two times a day that you block out in your calendar. Turn your phone off, stop emails from being received in that time and remove all other distractions. It is only half an hour. Then dedicate that undistracted, productive time to working on a task.
From experience (mine and many clients too) this equates to double the time, sometimes even more. Imagine how productive you would be making this small change in your day.