I usually wait to write my blog posts till the day they're published. But the subject matter for this one has me motivated, so I'm writing it Saturday, and scheduling it for Monday.

But before you praise me for beating procrastination, I should point out that I've been putting off two important tasks for about two weeks now. I'm planning to do them Monday. :-)

In a minute, I'll tell you why I'm confident I'll get them done this time.

The New Yorker posted an article about procrastination last month:

Each year, Americans waste hundreds of millions of dollars because they don't file their taxes on time. The Harvard economist David Laibson has shown that American workers have forgone huge amounts of money in matching 401(k) contributions because they never got around to signing up for a retirement plan. Seventy per cent of patients suffering from glaucoma risk blindness because they don't use their eyedrops regularly.

One strategy the article offered for beating procrastination is to set up a situation that makes procrastination impossible or much more "painful" than normal. For example, if you always avoid studying by text messaging, have a friend hide your phone till you've finished. Or you might set a deadline with consequences that you can't back out of, like a bet with a friend that you'll finish by some particular time.

Another strategy that's a big part of the "Getting Things Done" system is to define in detail the concrete steps that need to be taken to complete a task.

It's often hard to get moving when all you know is that you've got a lot to do. It's much easier to tackle a well-defined task that you know you can finish in two or three minutes.

And in my experience, even if I've only committed myself to the first three-minute task, once I've finished it, the inertia and sense of accomplishment that creates makes it much easier to move on to another one.

Reader Comment:
Antone Roundy said:
Update/report: I've just finished one of the things I'd been putting off, and have made good progress on the other. Clarifying and chunking definitely helped. Lee, what can I say? I know exactly where you're coming from. Getting a handle on the bi...
(join the conversation below)

Studies have shown that procrastination has become more of a problem over the years. At the end of the article is a quote that may help explain this:

Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing.

Our lives have gotten busier, and portable technology has filled in all the little time gaps we used to have. So the different parts of ourselves that are battling with each other to get us to act on their priorities have so much to argue about that sometimes none of the things we need to do is important enough to put off all the rest for.

As a result, ironically, we end up putting off all the important stuff and doing something less important, simply because it's less taxing than choosing from amongst our priorities.

If you can make your to-do list the path of least resistance by breaking tasks down into tiny, easy chunks, and recognizing that it doesn't really matter which you do first, you have a much better chance of beating this problem of priority overload.

Just be sure to keep unimportant tasks off of your to-do list.

Getting back to the two things I've been putting off the last few weeks, the reason I believe I'll get them done Monday (one of them, at least -- the other may take longer) is that this evening, I finally sat down and spent some time thinking about the exactly what I need to do, and breaking it down into tiny tasks.

I was actually surprised to realize how little I needed to do, and how much of it would be easy.

I'm sure I'll still tackle the easy parts first, and put the hard parts off till last. But by the time I get to the hard stuff, the end will be in sight rather than hidden somewhere off in the fog.

Do This Now:

Have you been putting off doing any important tasks? Write them down. Then write down some of the little things you'll need to do to finish them.

If a task is too big, you don't need to work out all the details right now. Just break it down into big chunks and nail down the details for one chunk. Once you've done that, pick one of the details and do it. Then pick another.

Keep going, and soon you'll finish that chunk, and you can work out the details for the next chunk and attack them.

You know it needs to be done. You know you'll be happier once you've gotten started. So stop checking your email, reading articles (like this one), looking for snacks, tidying your office, or whatever you do to put things off, and get moving right now, even if all you can commit to is writing down the details for the first chunk.

When you're done -- and not before! -- come back and leave a comment.

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