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How to avoid procrastinating and get writing
Author : Catie Holdridge
Posted : 10 / 01 / 10
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Remember last year: the pain of putting off that report day after day, finally bashing it out in a blind panic the night before it was due? Not only does this leave you a stress-addled mess, but it means your cobbled-together work won’t represent the best you can actually do. It could even mean you miss out on business you really should have won.
We procrastinate for several reasons. Feeling overwhelmed by the size of a project; feeling out of your depth; fear of failure (or even of success); perfectionism; other tasks distracting you: these may all be to blame. Ultimately, as Mark Forster points out in Do It Tomorrow – and Other Secrets of Time Management, each of these reasons stems from our reactive mind viewing whatever it is we have to do as a threat (risking failure etc). By avoiding the work, we avoid the danger.
Only temporarily of course. In reality, we all know that eventually we will be in a worse position.
These tricks can help you start as you mean to go on (willpower required):
Of course, most resolutions are fated to be thrown out after a single slip-up. But to give in to discouragement after one lost day and start procrastinating all over again would be the equivalent of giving in to one slice of cheesecake, then despairingly deciding you may as well eat everything in the fridge. You’re left feeling queasy, angry and with considerably less to show for it. You deserve better.
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