Counter Attacks for Procrastinators

By ThinkAvenue Editor

When you’re your own boss, putting off the things you don’t really want to do is so much more tempting than when you had someone breathing down your neck to get everything finished in a set timeframe. Any business owner will admit to not loving every part of their day-to-day operations. But until you grow enough to hire more employees to take care of the tasks you’d rather just forget about, you have to find a way to force yourself to handle even the most annoying and/or boring jobs. Before you come up with another scheme that lets you put off today what you can do tomorrow, tackle this little article to learn how to counter attack all those procrastination tendencies.

Be not afraid
Procrastination Fallacy 1: You’ll never complete the project to complete satisfaction.
Counter Attack: The most common reason for procrastinating is fear of failure. You're paralyzed with the idea that you're not perfect. Guess what? No one is! Once you come to terms with the fact that success doesn’t require perfection, you can start tackling the task at hand.

Baby Steps
Procrastination Fallacy 2: The amount of work that needs to get done is completely overwhelming and can never be realistically finished.
Counter Attack: Wait! Don't go out for another coffee! Take that huge, daunting task and break it down. Figure out all of the components necessary to complete the project and work on them piece by piece. Instead of a monstrous chore, you'll have lots of little projects and more things to cross off that to-do list as you finish them!

Dirty Work
Procrastination Fallacy 3: The project is so terrible and below your talent level that you feel like you shouldn’t have to do it.
Counter Attack: Suck it up and do the least appealing bits first. There's something to be said for getting the worst of it done: The worst is over.

Time’s Up
Procrastination Fallacy 4: A task cannot be started unless you have enough time to fully complete it.
Counter Attack: By following the 10-Minute Rule—only spending 10 minutes at a time on the project—you’ll find yourself steadily completing it in mere minutes.

Just Rewards
Procrastination Fallacy 5: Running a business is a never-ending process that is bound to keep you working around the clock.
Counter Attack: It’s vital to give yourself little perks for getting work started. Only you know what works best for you. Rewards like popping into a chat room, renting a cheesy horror movie, whatever it is, just make it good. Dangle that carrot in front of your nose and see how quickly you rise to the challenge.



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