by Amelia Walker

Created on: June 18, 2010

There is nothing that is a greater obstacle to men's improvement than procastination. All of us have been huilty of procastination at one point in our lives or another. There has never been a great man who achieved success without overcoming procastination. Even if you are not aiming for the next nobel prize; you can definitely benefit from overcoming this alluring habit.

1) Set specific time constraints.

Research has found that the less time you have to do somehting, the more efficiently it will be done. You may feel that if you give yourself lots of time, the  quality of the work will be better. However, unless you have great will power, you are likely to put off doing it till the last minute and end up rushing it. The human mind is a strange machine. It is subject to all kinds of misjudgements and falacies. Once you make the mistake of allowing yourself the luxury of time; it classifies the task as non-urgent, The brain has evolved to deal with important urgent matters first; essential for survival. Thus, we have to fool the brain into believing evry task we do  is essential and urgent. Allowing less time is one of the tactics.

2) Add some spice into each task.

 The brain does not like monotony; it stays away from mundane tasks. It is born to do challenging tasks. The more complex a task is, the more your eagerness to solve it will be. However be careful that it is within your capabilities. If yous mind feels like it is ijmpossible to do; you will end up never even attempting it. No matter how boring the task is, it is all in your attitude and the way you perceive it. Learn to see new possibilities in each and everything you do.

3) Break down the task into small bits.

One reason why you may be putting off the task is that you find it daunting. This is especially so for perfectionist who always want to put in a lot of effort and time into every task and the best that they can be each and every time. Now that is a rather stressful thought. You may feel like if you started a while later, you may be able to better put your energy. However that " a bit later" never seems to come. Hence, have a planner and allocate small slots of time to a part of the task. It is not possible to finish the entire job in one go for instances anyway. With smaller slots, you can fill up those time slots in between certain activities that would have gone wasted. You may want to read up books on time management for advice on this.

4) Motivate yourself.

Even if you have followed the above three pointers; if you are the sort who lacks motivation and is basically lazy, yuou are not going to get anything done. Just remember that you have been born into this world for a purpose. Your life is short and in this short time, wasting any amount of the precious time is stupidity. The time now will never come back. So just remind yourself your aim. Write it down somewhere where you can see it and start each day by telling yourself that today is a gift and you are going to make the most out of it. Diuscipline yourself. Give yourself incentives. If you finish one task, give yourself a small treat. Or it can work the other way too. A small punishment by depriving yourself something for every task not completed in time. Get into this habit and it will take you far in life.

So go out, live life; try everything you can, love as much as you want and live like there is everything there is. Good luck.

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