Hi this is Ceema . Welcome to Skillopedia. The place to learn skills for the real world.
Well in my hand is my to do list for today. The first thing I've got to do today is, Go
to the bank. Then I've got to take my dog for a walk, Then Iv'e got to take my parents
out for lunch. And then Iv'e gotta get my nails done and lastly Iv'e gotta go and study.
You know what I'm not gonna do that today, I'm just gonna rest today, I'm gonna do all
of this maybe next week. Are you like me? Is it what you also do? Do you delay things
for a later time? If you do things like that you have a very bad habit of Procrastinating.
Yes procrastination is basically delaying important things for a later date or a later
time. Well, today we are going to learn, Why we procrastinate? And how we are going to
overcome this very bad habit. It is important that we overcome this habit, because successful
people always, always avoid procrastination.
Ever wondered, Why you delay work or why you procrastinate? Well, one of the very common
reasons is because there is no deadline. Imagine getting some work and not being told, when
you've gotta finish that work by. That's not a good thing because you don't tend to set
priority for that work. You can finish the work whenever you want, you can begin the
work whenever you want and therefore you always procrastinate, because there is no deadline.
Sometimes you don' t have the right resources. Imagine your mum tells you to bake a cake
for your little brother. She gives you the items required to bake the cake. You have
the time to bake the cake, but you don't have the information or the knowledge to do that,
so you don't have the right amount of resources available. Therefore you might just put off
work for a later time and therefore you procrastinate.
Sometimes you don't have passion, you lack passion for the work that you are given to
do, that's another reason why you procrastinate. If your boss tell you to do a project and
you are not interested in the project, you will procrastinate, lack of passion for the
work you are given. Sometimes the task that is given to you is so big or it may feel very
big to you and therefore you are overwhelmed. So you get scared to do the work, you are
anxious , you dont know where to begin, you don't know how to finish, because the entire
task seems so big, so overwhelming and therefore you might just scared and procrastinate and
just say that you gonna do it at a later time and therefore delay a very important task.
And last of all there are some people who are scared, they are scared of failing, you
give them a job to do but, they are worried that if they fail it may have a negative impact
on their career or any other thing and therefore they would rather not do their work and keep
it or put it of for a later time. But now I am gonna show you different and very effective
ways to overcome procrastination, this way I can guarantee you will get your work done now.
The main important thing to note, if you want to avoid procrastination or the habit of delaying
important work is to delete or do away with work that is not important. Do you know when
you have a lot of work to do in a day, not all those jobs are equally important or as
important as each other. Therefore you need to know the art of only choosing that work
that is important. In other words you've got to set your priorities, choose important work
first and do away with work which is not important.
Another very important thing that you need to understand is that you can actually delegate
work to somebody else. To do that you've to ask yourself a question - Is this job really
part of my responsibility? Is it part of my job description? If the answer to that questions
is 'no', guess what, you can actually delegate or give that work to someone else, so that
the burden of work falls a little for yourself, which again makes your life a whole lot easier.
Do you know that when you postpone a particular activity you are very anxious, yes it creates
feelings of anxiety, you keep worrying throughout the day, when am I gonna finish it? What if
I don't finish it? What's gonna happen? Well, therefore I believe in the very important
mantra, which is called - DO IT NOW. If there is a job you van get done quickly, you must
do it now. This way you will remove all feelings of anxiety and get the work accomplished within
a matter of minutes or perhaps within an hour.
A lot of people have this really bad habit of not asking for advice, your life can become
little bit more simpler , if you simply make yourself humble and ask for advice. When you
have a job to do if you are not sure of how to begin, or how to go through or finish the
job, you have a supervisor, if you have a coach or a trainer or an expert, you can actually
get advice and learn to get the job done in a much more effective way. Therefore if you
wanna get your job done, it is very important to ask for advice from the right people.
The fifth very important thing to note if you want to avoid procrastination is 'Breaking
up or chopping up the job. Well, what is it to chop up a job? Do you know when you have
some amount of work to do it looks really big, right? However if you break that really
big job into little parts it's going to be ridiculously simple to actually get that work
done. Therefore you must always breakdown or chop up your jobs into different parts
in order to accomplish them more effectively and much faster.
The sixth important point to avoid procrastination is to make or establish clear deadlines. Well,
you must establish or make deadlines or let's say milestones for the different kind of work
that you are going to do on a everyday basis. Well why do you do that? Because if you know
when you are gonna finish what work, that way you can plan accordingly and avoid the
temptation to delay the work for a a later time. In fact I would also suggest that you
let people know of the deadlines or the milestones that you are setting out to accomplish, that
way they can also hold you accountable if you don't meet deadlines or the milestones
that you have set up for yourself.
I would always encourage you to reward yourself, when you have successfully delivered the work
depending on the deadline you have set for yourself , you must reward yourself, right?
So whenever you complete any particular milestone, give yourself a reward, take yourself out
for lunch, you know, buy a little something for yourself, that way you will make yourself
feel a little bit better and believe that will go a long way in avoiding procrastination
in the future.
It is also very important that you remove any kind of distractions when you are working.
When you procrastinate you are probably in an environment which does not allow you to
work very effectively, therefore try to work in a place where you van focus on your work,
try to be with people who will help you with your work and not distract you. These are
the ways you can actually overcome procrastination and get your work done effectively.
That's it from me on this session on ways to overcome procrastination or putting off
work for a later time, I hope you found it very informative and you are going to apply
it to have a successful life and a successful career. I will be back with some more lessons, some
more skills. Don't forget to subscribe to SKILLOPEDIA - The Place To Learn Skills For The Real World.