In today’s world, we are more overloaded than ever before – with many of us managing portfolio careers or a multitude of roles within the same job title, coupled with tight deadlines, the speed of social media and the general juggling of our everyday lives - it can often feel impossible to get the workload finished and at times, even started.
Stress, anxiety and overwhelm are very real symptoms of overload, with serious implications on our social, mental and physical health.
Enter procrastination - the biggest culprit that prevents our effective time management and all-round productivity.
WHY DO WE PROCRASTINATE?
The theory of why we procrastinate is actually fairly straightforward.
Let me explain: Procrastination works to actively limit our performance. When our performance is limited, we don’t work to our full ability. And when we don’t work to our full ability then our self-worth is protected, regardless of how well we actually do.
Our self-worth has often been set to correlate directly with our abilities – we hold our pride in what we can achieve. We are usually educated that way – the pupil with the high marks gets more attention, more approval. So our self-worth can be a vulnerable thing and we unconsciously work pretty hard to protect it.
If we do things at the last minute and do well, then we can glow in the knowledge that we could have done even better. If we leave things till the last minute and don’t do so well, then we can console ourselves with the knowledge that we know we can easily do better. It’s a double bind.
WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT?
FIVE STEPS TO EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT
1. Remember the fable of The Tortoise and The Hare? Slow and steady wins the race! Break down each task you need to get done into 3 smaller bite size chunks and stay consistent with your effort. Steady, consistent effort is way more effective than last minute pushing, whatever you may tell yourself.
2. Incentivize yourself by adopting the Pomodoro Technique. This is where you set a timer to work for 25 minutes without interruption. If something pops into your head, scribble it on a piece of paper and get back to the task in hand. After 25 mins, take a short 10-minute break. Repeat four times. After 4 cycles, take a longer break of 30-60 mins. You will get so much more done and feel far less overloaded and overwhelmed with this one! (NB. You can download the free app Focus Keeper to help you with this.)
3. Learn how to say no and push back. Our people management skills sit hand-in-hand with our time management. Steps one and two are all very well but what about the people who can hijack our time? Saying no isn’t always an easy thing to do but it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing affair. Sometimes buying time can be very useful. Phrases like, “I can speak to you about this in 30 minutes” can be very effective. So long as you stick to it, it can be a very useful way of not only shifting your own negative patterns around time management but also other peoples’. Another one is along the lines of, “I can help you with this after 2pm but not before.” This phrase gives a positive and helpful response whilst also creating boundaries and push back on those time-encroachers. Practice these kinds of phrases where the stakes are low initially, then you will feel more comfortable using them in high-pressured situations or influencing upwards within the hierarchy.
4. Manage your self-talk. Our monkey minds can tell us all sorts of things that can sabotage our effective time management and often these things are unconscious. Sit down with a notebook and a pen and spend 15 minutes writing down all of the reasons why you procrastinate. Things might include ‘the project is too big’ or ‘I want it to be amazing’. Be honest. Then look at how accurate that self-talk is. Usually, it knocks things way out of perspective and exaggerates. Get it back in balance with how things really look, rewrite them and claim your perspective back.
5. Remind yourself of your own unique strengths and qualities. Write them down and revisit them regularly. To maximize your potential you need to develop the skills you already have, not beat your head against a wall repeatedly trying to fix the things you are less good at. Focus on your strengths and you build confidence. Build confidence and you work more effectively. Fact. Try it!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dannie-Lu Carr is a thought leader in Creativity, Communication and Change. She internationally advises and coaches businesses and individuals as an external coach and consultant, as well as carrying out her own creative roles as a writer, singer/songwriter, theatre director and Meisner Technique specialist.