Overcome Procrastination And Reduce Stress

Procrastination is the root cause of much of the stress that people experience today. Leaving tasks unfinished, being late and not living up to job expectations can undermine your self worth and cause you stress unnecessarily. Every time you don't complete a task on time your self confidence takes a blow. On the other hand, when you do complete a task, especially if it was a difficult one, then your stress is alleviated and your self confidence gets a boost.

Prioritize your tasks, establish your goals and measure your progress. Get feedback on your progress if possible and then readjust your goals to keep them reasonable. One the job you can work with another procrastinator to motivate each other.

Interestingly, many of the tasks that we put off doing are very simple ones but just happened to be something that we dislike. When setting a goal for completion of such a project, be realistic as to how long it will take you so that you do not put additional stress on yourself for getting it done. It has been suggested that workers waste nearly one third of the workday. Yet at the same time they complain about being stressed out because they don't have enough time to get things done. The less you get done, the more stress you feel and the more stress you have the easier it is for you to procrastinate.

One way to break out of this vicious cycle is to keep a log of how you spend your time during your workday so that you can pick out patterns in your behavior. Do you get sidetracked by chatting with coworkers? Do you waste time because you are disorganized? As you go through your log and discover your time wasters, you will probably run across some that truly are beyond your control so don't concern yourself with those. Instead, take a long look at your actions during your workday where you waste your time that is fully under your control. Figure out a way to eliminate those time robbers from your day.

Stop making excuses and coming up with reasons to put off tasks that you do not like to do. It may cause you stress to work on a project you do not like, but you will feel stress anyway when you procrastinate on getting it done. When you overcome procrastination and tackle your tasks head on, you will eliminate a great deal of stress in your life.

Simply set goals for when projects should be completed and force yourself to take action each day towards the completion of the goal. It will be difficult at first but within a fairly short time, your new habits will take root and before long you will overcome procrastination, be accomplishing more and stressing out less.