Beating Procrastination

By Dan Goodwin

Purpose: To identify procrastination habits and types, recognise your own favourite procrastination techniques, identify the biggest time wasters in your life and take steps to eliminate them.

Estimated time: 15 minutes +

Outline of exercise: We all are guilty of putting things off, saying "I'll do it later" and making ourselves too "busy" to do something we know needs attention.

When it comes to being creative, and especially to getting to work on the creative projects that matter most to us, we manage to — ironically — put our creativity into top gear and come up with any number of reasons why the conditions are not quite right to begin creating right now...

One coaching model suggests there are actually 5 types of procrastination:

1. Avoiding pain or discomfort. The activity seems very unpleasant, especially when compared with something far more enjoyable you could do with the time. Often because of the pressures we put on ourselves to create, we forget how to simply create for the joy of creating. We may say something like — "This is going to be horrible to do and it's bound to take ages. So I'll start it another time."


2. Complacency. An over-strong sense of self confidence. We're so sure that we have every part of that new creative project figured out that we convince ourselves there's no urgent need to begin anytime soon. Sample inner thoughts — "I'm in control and it won't take long to do so I don't need to deal with it right now."


3. Using emotional barriers. We convince ourselves the time and conditions aren't right to start this now. We're artists, we can't simply create to order, we must be inspired! "I'm not in the mood to do this now, I'll only start it when my inspiration returns and the time is right."


4. Fear of failure. The thought of not being successful puts off even starting the activity. Doubts in our own ability and talents, or even our "right" to be creating at all, can seem to paralyse us. "Who am I kidding, I've failed at this before." Or "I don't think I can cope, I'm bound to mess it up."


5. Action magician. We do lots of "surface" activity which makes us feel like we're busy, but we're actually avoiding tackling the real issue. "Wow those new notebooks look so beautifully organised on my shelf." "I've been so busy today, I must be making progress."

Do you recognise yourself in one or more of these types in yourself? Which of them do you rely on most? How can you recognise when you're procrastinating?

Imagine a day's creativity without procrastinating. A whole day where you seized the creative project in hand and went about throwing yourself fully into it with the minimum amount of distraction and avoidance. How much more do you think you would be able to achieve? How would that make you feel at the end of the day?

Action Points:

What are your three biggest time-wasters overall? The three main things that you keep you from tackling the real activities you need to be addressing? Be honest with yourself. Write them down.

What can you do in the next week to begin to eliminate these time wasters? What can you replace them with to improve your creativity, efficiency and productivity? Write all the things you can think of. What else could you do?

To get started, write a list of all the outstanding creative projects or activities you've been procrastinating about, however large or small.

Then pick the one that's calling you most strongly, set a date and time to do it and get creating! •

© Copyright 2006 Dan Goodwin

Download a PDF of this exercise
from CoachCreative.com

06/28/06