This week’s theme is perfect for the busy time I’m going through right now: procrastination.

I’ve noted that the more stressed and overwhelmed I feel, the more I procrastinate. I tend to be a perfectionist as well, to keep some sort of control I guess, and as Marcia says in the lesson, it’s often the main cause of procrastination.

The tips she gives to break procrastination are all great, but my fave is to do the most unpleasant or difficult task first, or as she often says, to “eat the frog“.

I often tell myself, “eat broccoli first, dessert after”, which means the same: once the task you dreaded most is done, you feel proud of yourself and the rest seems almost easy!

I’ve recently noted something very similar in my professional life (again): I had the chance to have a couple days without my boss being in the office all day.

She’s a mayor’s deleguee and we work together all the time since we’re planning a very big event.

We work great together usually, but when she asks for something, “not now” or “I should be doing something else instead” is NOT an acceptable answer.

When she spends the day in my office, I usually don’t do much besides what she asks for. Anyway, last week she wasn’t there for two whole days. On the first one I thought “Oh, the day is long, I can start with some easy tasks, complete some filing and some “relaxing” to-do’s. I deserve some mini-vacation!”

Well, the days aren’t that long actually, and I can’t afford vacations, even mini ones! I ended up not having done much and feeling frustrated for “wasting” a day.

I didn’t repeated that same mistake on the second day when she was gone, and at lunch break I had already written 4 articles for the town magazine, updated the website for the 3 coming weeks and finished the programme for our big event so that it could be printed as soon as she would give me the green light!

I can’t tell you how proud and satisfied I felt compared to the first day.

Lesson learned: I will start my day with the most important and most annoying tasks first, so that if my day gets crazy afterwards, at least this part is done. Filing can wait (not indefinitely, but you get the idea! LOL)!

Take care!

Chloe, I love how you recognised your time challenges both with your boss’s demanding style and with your own internal distractions the first day, but most of all, I love how you self-corrected.

Fantastic job – I’m so proud of you.

Do you procrastinate?
Have you ever thought about why you do so?

There’s a little-known secret that, once understood, will absolutely change the way you run your life.

That secret is playing to your strengths by using your natural energy cycles.

When you work with your energy cycles instead of against them, you save time because you do things faster, with more clarity and with greater focus.

Quickly grab a piece of paper and answer these four questions:

1. Are you a night owl or an early bird?

If you’re a night owl like me, then plan your life so that you start the day off slowly and work up to your peak. Or vice versa.

2. When do you do your best creative work?

I don’t know if the real creative types will agree with me but I think that any form of writing uses the creative side of our brains.

When I need to do some writing, I’m generally great first thing in the morning (well, for me…) or very late at night (9pm onwards). If I try to write from lunch-time onwards, it takes me at least double the time, if not longer.

When I leave the project and do it at one of my prime writing times, the ideas flow easier and the quality is just better.

3. When do you do your best logical/ reasoning work?

This involves things like budgeting, playing with spreadsheets (that’s what I call it to make it seem more fun!), working with numbers, etc.

Figure this out and as best as you can, try and schedule these kinds of tasks when that side of your brain is awake and kicking!

4. When do you prefer to exercise?

Um, never Okay, let me rephrase: if you had to exercise, when would be the best time for you?

This usually works the same as number 1 but if you find that if you’re stuck, lacking motivation or just feeling overwhelmed, you might want to add in some exercise to jump-start yourself.

This week’s coaching challenge

a. Pick a task you’ve been procrastinating on or that you just can’t seem to get going with.
b. After you’ve identified the type of task, work on it at a different time of day.
c. Get it done

You can do it!

Marcia Francois is a speaker and time management coach. If you want to break out of overwhelm, I’ll show you how to get more organised and save time by getting the right things done. Visit http://takechargesolutions.org for your free Organising Success Pack worth $37.

My main organisational issue is to get started / not procrastinate. I always have better things to do.

Oh, and I hate to have to make choices and take decisions because that means not choosing something and I’m afraid it’ll be the wrong choice. So any advice about those two topics are warmly welcome!!

Chloé from France.

Chloe, sometimes we procrastinate because the thing really shouldn’t even be on our to-do list. If that’s the case, let it go and be free. Maybe that’s why you say you always have better things to do

Otherwise, if it does support your lifestyle goals, then here’s how you can overcome procrastination:

• break up the project into small steps
• focus on just the very next action step, e.g. if you need to get a new job, don’t start thinking about what you’re going to wear to interviews….just yet. for now, decide what kind of job you want – that’s the first action step. Then update your CV (resume), etc, etc.
• what gets you motivated? If it’s accountability, then tell someone to hold you accountable.
• work with a timer and get it done

Bath, England, May 2008

About making decisions, I wrote about 3 steps to confident decision-making.

Have a read

How do you overcome procrastination?

P.S. here are tons more tips on overcoming procrastination.

1. outlining my talk

I am doing a talk on 8 August and while I’ve spoken on the topic “Empowering women” many times before, I need to condense some things, do a proper outline and decide exactly what I want to cover this time. I also customise to the specific group so that needs to be also taken into account.

2. writing one chapter of my new e-book

I have done only 1 out of 5 chapters and I need to get cracking. As with everything else, it is the starting. Once I sit still and write the first 15 – 20 mins, I’m hooked and I can write for hours.

When I get a bit stuck, I tell myself, “what would I do if I were coaching myself?“

So today, I am going to (1) reward myself with reading blogs for 10 minutes AFTER I have written at least 30 minutes, and I will keep doing that until the chapter is done. Then (2) I am blogging it for accountability.

Those two things usually work for me!

Go visit 5 minutes for mom for more great tackles. And while you’re surfing, say hi to a blogger today!