INTRODUCTION
Table of Contents
This is an obstacle that many or even most people run into with many aspects of their life, to include the online marketing business they may be involved in…
Obviously, it is an undesirable period that all want to avoid. The term is sometimes confused with taking down time or a vacation or just a planned break from whatever task a person may be involved in…
Procrastination is an entirely different animal, and it can take its toll on a lot of things in one’s life if not addressed head on and conquered, or at least controlled.
So today’s relatively short post is to provide you a good definition of what procrastination is, show how it can have a detrimental effect on your online marketing business, and then offer you suggestions from various sources on how to funk your way out of those procrastination blues…
That is what we will cover today…Read on to learn more…
WHAT IS PROCRASTINATION
So just what is procrastination anyway? Per Wikipedia, it can be described as follows:
“Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task which needs to be accomplished. It is the practice of doing more pleasurable things in place of less pleasurable ones or carrying out less urgent tasks instead of more urgent ones, thus putting off impending tasks to a later time.”
(Source: Wikipedia)
This is an excellent definition, and as stated above, it can happen in any area of your life. Particularly when it starts to happen with your participation level in your online marketing business though you need to recognize it is happening and take concrete steps to counter the tendency…
Does this apply to you ever? Have you ever thought that you should be working on something, but you find it hard to do it, and somehow you slip into doing something that you would rather be doing, either useful or more often not to the task that you need to be doing…
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WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
I want to present a handy infographic that aptly points out some actions you can take to fight falling into the procrastination abyss…After you have a look through these, we will discuss further…
Note that these were focused toward the writer, but this is, in fact, a lot of what we do as online marketers…So much involves copywriting, creating content, pages, videos, products, opt-ins, contests, surveys, etc.
All writing of one sort or another is involved…It permeates our entire niche…So this infographic applies indeed…
Courtesy of: http://essay.expert
I think this simple infographic offers a lot of good advice and there are many more tips and tools you can use to combat procrastination, of course…Before we go into additional tips, let me discuss these…
I would like to talk about each of the above briefly from a first person perspective (my own experiences)…
(1) Know Yourself
One of the keys to me combatting procrastination was being able to see when I started falling into the trap. After more than one experience of neglecting my work, or doing the easier things instead of the important things, I knew I had to take some steps to guard against procrastination…
I started training myself to sense when this was happening. By planning my day and having a list of things to do each day, and crossing the tasks out as I completed, it felt like a reward and I was able to stay on task easier.
For this to work, you have to realize your tendencies and then set up a system of moves or tools or ways to diminish the times when you lapse into this state. This can include a set of tools, many of which you will read about here.
(2) Practice Effective Time Management
This is one I learned as a young man while in the military, Believe-you-me, time management is drilled into your head and body over a series of weeks when first entering the military service.
You learn all the legal shortcuts and learn how to make the best use of a limited time that you are given. It does not take long to get good at it, and it’s something that stays with you the rest of your life.
Obviously, I am not recommending that you sign up for a military service stint to learn how to manage your time effectively. I also learned later in life (in college) to start making lists daily of tasks to be done and track my progress…
I also learned to plan everything, keep a log by project and tasks for each, and etc. It helps keep you organized. Note this also applies to any resources you may use for your online business.
(3) Change your Perspective
In the tip above, they essentially are saying to reframe how you look at the tasks at hand, and the ones that you may not really like to do, but have to be done.
Think about them from a perspective of how each will move you forward towards you achieving your end goal, how they are but one piece of many.
Depending on the size and work required to complete that task, it may be better to break that task into pieces and swallow/complete each piece one by one, until the overall task is complete.
I just completed a 10 part series on free traffic. Because of the size of this task, I set up some ground rules and also as a part of the planning process, decided to do separate entries for each.
In total, there are likely 70,000 to 80,000 words in the series, if you include the introduction and wrap-up articles. That was indeed as daunting a task to date for me. as I have done with online marketing…
By breaking it up, it was digestible and doable for me. I also loosened up on the timeline. I did not pressure myself or mentally flog myself to a due date for completion, rather I interspersed each part of the series with other posts and projects…
(4) Commit To Assignments
Using again the 10 part series on free traffic, I did. however, make a commitment to get the series done within a reasonable period of time. I just gave myself an open end date
This worked rather well. I was always working on each part as I found time, and got them published one after another. Right now the final wrap-up article is ready soon for publishing….
My end product is a lot better for me setting reasonable goals and timeline for the project. Readers have a good source of information now they can use as a starting point to develop one or more of the free traffic methods I wrote about, or explore further on their own.
Because procrastination was taken off the table by my actions, it worked, and there was no pressure that often causes a person to start going into that procrastination mode.
(5) Work In A Productive Environment
This is so true. If you are distracted by something going on around you, it is very hard to concentrate and do justice to the task at hand. It is easy to wander and start paying more attention to whatever it is that can distract you.
Myself, I have a certain set of things that can be going on in the background, and these do not distract me, rather they set my mood to really focus and get things done.
I listen to music in the background, at a low level and soft rather than head-banging genre…I have been known to listen to classical, soft pop, soft Christian music, or even country…
Come up with a combination of what works to provide yourself an atmosphere that will you to focus on the tasks at hand. Even though you would rather be doing something else, having this will help you get the thing done…
(6) Be Realistic
This is an important consideration. Set realistic goals for what you want to get done. If you do not do this, you are setting yourself up for failure, and a reluctance to even get started, because inside you know it will not be done in the time you have set to have it done anyway.
My military service helped on this, as did my college and university programs. Certainly we all have a span of control, so it is important that we know the limitations and capabilities, and adjust your focus and goals accordingly…
This helps keep things moving along towards the finish line, you can celebrate the intermediary victories as you complete each sub-task, and this builds a positive air about the entire task.
Rather than something seeming insurmountable, and therefore open to procrastination, you find the opposite. You work hard to get to the next mission accomplished stage for the sub-task…
(7) Self-Talk Positively
This is so true. How your outlook and attitude is will determine outcomes. I used to love one-liners in the military, and one that applies here is “Your attitude determines your altitude.”
If you have a positive attitude it is much easier to get through the hard tasks or ones that you may not particularly care to do. Over time what you say you believe and act out. I urge you to believe in you and what you are doing…
(8) Unschedule
This is something I plan for daily. Having been at this productivity business for a lot of years now, and knowing myself quite well over this time-span, I know that I need to plan for the WHOLE day and all activities…
By this, I mean that there are things “off-line” (not work focused) as I used to say that you will want to add into the day. It may be a swim, a walk, a jog, whatever it is that will give you a respite from the task at hand…You have to also allow for this, or risk burnout, and of course procrastination results…
So do not overschedule you day. Leave the time to have the other parts of your life included. You can even use these as mini-rewards for yourself, knowing that when you are busting butt during the task portion of the day you have that break coming up…
(9) Swiss Cheese Assignments
This is pretty much what I talked about above I think, where you take bigger projects or tasks and break them into parts. It really does help…
I have more than one niche that I work on, as well as offline business activities. By breaking the day into supporting them all, and then with the subtasks in each doing the same, I find myself chugging along every day…
When you are starting out, and you see the huge mountain of things to get done to have a viable online business together, it can be so daunting that the automatic reaction for you is to start procrastinating and not get anything done…
Don’t let that happen, Rather, break that mountain into a series of climbs, and then build in a reward for each leg you complete. Once in a while as you are making that climb, look back and see just how far you have come.
This looking back will help give you more motivation to proceed with the climb. Add this to your positive attitude, to your providing other activities that reward you for good effort, and wow you are a machine that cannot be stopped!
(10) Don’t Indulge Fantasies
This is one that is mentioned above where I think you can be thrown off track maybe. What I think they are intending to state is that you should focus when working on the task at hand.
The way they put it makes it appear that imagination and dreaming have no place when working on tasks or projects that are hard or make you susceptible to procrastination.
This is not true for me. I add this imagination and free thinking to keep things fresh and interesting. Certainly once you have a task at hand that has to get done and does NOT require such thinking, then cutting out any distraction such as dreaming or fantasizing will help…
Use it sparingly and often is the way I operate…It works and I come up with so many ideas and solutions…BUT do not let it get in the way of specific tasks or projects or of things on your to-do list that need to get done…In short do not let it make you procrastinate!
(11) Plan For Obstacles
This is good, There will always be things that happen that you have not planned for. They will suck your time from you that was planned for the project or task at hand.
If you plan for this ahead of time, and allow that extra time where you will get distracted you have a more realistic picture, you lessen frustration…, it does not throw your schedule off for completion of the project, and it can even be turned into yet another positive – use the unplanned disruptions to recharge the batteries perhaps, or have a coffee, whatever…
By doing this, the things getting in your way do not throw your schedule off for completion of the project, and it can even be turned into yet another positive – use the unplanned disruptions to recharge the batteries perhaps, or have a coffee, whatever…
(12) Improve Learning Behavior
Over a period of time, you will begin to determine what works best for you when trying to absorb information and retain/use it later for your projects and tasks.
You will have experiences over time that will teach you what to do and not to do, Keep learning as you go, never stop because you will get more and more efficient at tasks and projects…
They will seem less daunting, and then you are ready to take on more challenging projects and goals, and so it goes…The positivity and accomplishments feed on one another…..
(13) Help Yourself
Do not count on others to bail you out. If you do this, and others do help, over time this can become a crutch. You will learn to allow for such help, and when there comes a time when it is not there, you will fail.
To prevent this, do NOT count on others if the task is something that you as an individual must do. Obviously, if it is a team task, the whole situation changes…
Just learn to do things yourself, and let others know that you do not want to have them support your cries for help when the reason you need their help is due to procrastination.
(14) Reward Yourself
This is pretty much what I have said above in other points from the infographic above. If you build in these mini-rewards throughout and between the sub-tasks, they can serve as useful motivators…a good thing!
(15) Learn To Forgive Yourself
This is very important. The reality in life is that there will be times when the best laid out plans you have and honestly intend to follow through on will not work out for one reason or another.
When this happens, it is important to realize that unless it WAS your fault, you need to give yourself a break for things that are beyond your control that affect your outcome…It happens…
Secondly, if the reason for failure IS something you could have taken action on to prevent, but you did not, you have to learn to take a good hard look at what happened…
See what went good, what did not, and look why it went good or bad. Forgive yourself for the mistakes, learn why they happened, then use this to make sure that they do not happen again.
This is how you turn a negative into a positive, and continued improvement over time…You will find yourself procrastinating less and less…
CONCLUSION
This is a subject that interests me a lot because there have been many times and situations over the years when I have noticed I was procrastinating…It happens to all of us…
if you can learn when you are starting to procrastinate, and then take concrete steps to stop it, you will get a lot more done and have a sense of accomplishment when you are getting things done that you know have to be done…
It can make life so much harder to get through when you procrastinate. In this field of online marketing, because so much of the work is something you are doing on your own, and maybe from your home, it is so easy to let procrastination get the best of you…
Use some or all of the ideas and tips presented here to make sure that you have a strong, active, and successful online marketing business in place, one that has no room for procrastination…
FREE EBOOK FOR MORE…
If you still need more (this is a subject that I think you can never have too much information about) I have something special for you. This is an eBook I have made available for free for your resource library.
Here is a shot of the cover…
The contents include the following…
Yes, more hints and ideas to beat the procrastination monkey on may people’s back that prevents them from being as effective as they could be.
You can get instant access to this free eBook by adding in your name and email address below. Once you click on the submit button, you will receive a verification email that you want to subscribe, that you simply click on the verification link, and you will immediately receive a second mail with the download link for this eBook…
[link for opt in]
Enjoy!
FINAL POINT
This is an interesting subject that pertains to almost everyone. I am looking for feedback on the content, your personal experiences, and what you may have done that worked or did not work to combat your own periods of procrastination. By doing so, we all learn and it adds to the overall post. Thanks in advance for your cooperation and time.
Cheers!
