Once upon a time, I created a section on this blog — “Business Tools.” Then it meant business with a travel club. Today I work in the same field, I just moved to a different plane. Since the beautiful fairy tale called Incruises came to an end, I left a company that was not friendly to my beliefs. But I decided to continue adding useful content to this section.
Today I want to talk about the eternal – procrastination and the fight against it. There’s a certain task hanging around that needs to be done, but you don’t really want to or don’t know which end to approach it from. Time passes, anxiety grows, but you switch to anything except this very task.
Familiar? Zhiza?
What to do if the task doesn’t work at all
With the help of useful articles and books – as well as the experience of colleagues and my own – I found the following solutions to the problem:
Rest.Sometimes it’s not the task itself, but simply simple fatigue. And it’s enough to take a break (for example, take a walk or take a nap) and start doing it with a fresh mind.
If the matter is urgent and there is no way to rest properly, then there are other ways. For example, you can try to change the environment a little – move to another room. Or take your laptop and go to the nearest coffee shop with an outlet and Wi-Fi. Or even working while standing is also some kind of change of activity.
For example, like this done by Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel and Git system
What can affect the speed and quality of task completion
“Eating a frog” in the morning. Business coach Brian Tracy suggests starting important and unpleasant tasks at the beginning of the day, and putting off what comes easier for the second half of the day.
The advice really works. It’s easy to notice: the longer you put off the “frog”, the less you want to “eat” it. As the evening approaches, the urge to “consume” YouTube and social networks becomes stronger, and you want to leave all sorts of delicacies for later.
Break a large, complex task into small ones(simple). Or “eating an elephant bit by bit” is another non-vegetarian metaphor.
Everything is simple here: if the task is simple and understandable, and completed relatively quickly, it is much easier to start. Let’s say “writing an article” sounds difficult and you want to put it off. But “making a thesis plan” is another matter.
Understand the problem better. It is unlikely that you will want to do something that was simply ordered from above – and at the same time they did not properly explain why it was all needed. In such cases, it is useful to ask questions, find out details, clarify conditions.
Deep understanding can provide motivation. Answering questions can clarify important details. And the discussion may even lead to the fact that the task does not need to be completed.
Delegate. Why not. Let’s say you can’t work with spreadsheets – such tasks seem like a terribly boring routine. But there is a colleague who loves columns, rows, functions – that’s all.
Postponing and not doing. Also an option
Sometimes it happens that the problem solves itself. Or another person solves it in a completely different way. And in the end it turns out that your laziness (procrastination) and intuition saved a lot of energy and time.
There is some truth in every joke
Motivation. There is one more thing that I would like to mention in this post, or rather the competent use of motivation. It is literate, not banal. This is no less important, both in everyday work and in achieving a specific goal.
If you know other ways to complete a task that just doesn’t want to be done — share in the comments.
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