Procrastination - self-help recommendations ?

I struggle with procrastination and am looking for self-help suggested books, info, etc.

Thanks

I haven't read any of these that I know of:

The Procrastinator's Handbook: Mastering the Art of Doing It Now, Emmett, Rita Emmett, Paperback, Book, ISBN: 0802775985,

Overcoming Procrastination: Or How to Think and Act Rationally in Spite of Life's Inevitable Hassles by Albert Ellis,

Procrastination: Why You Do It, What To Do About It, by Jane B. Burka, Ph.D., and Lenora M. Yuen, Ph.D.

Here's a listing of links to drclay's book on procrastination. : http://www.psychologicalselfhelp.org...rocrastination

Thank you Sky, the link to drclay's book was really helpful.

I also suffer from procrastination and it has gotten worse. I have seft help books and I will start them then put off reading them. I just dont get it!

Here's the link to drclay's book... chapter on procrastination: http://www.psychologicalselfhelp.org.../chap4_76.html

hmm... the chapter seems very useful
i am a very avid procrastinator, hopefully reading this will help me

I don't really have help to offer- but I can relate. My procrastination is getting worse and worse, and if I don't step it up, my grades will continue to fail, and this is the most important year for grades, the year universities focus on with applicants.
Like, right now...I have to get up for school in five hours and yet I'm putting off going to bed!

I recommend Scott M. Pecks, Road Less Traveled. It talks about delaying self gratification and taking care of what's not so gratifying first.

One small thing that has helped me.
Every day, I write down three jobs. They do not have to be big. It might be make a phone call, do laundry, send a birthday card. Check off when done. A visible sign of accomplishment.

I'm a horrendous world-class procrastinator and I've accepted I always will be to some extent. I've tried about a million different tricks, some help a little, most not at all. And there's no one thing alone that will do it.

But I am better and my biggest advice after all that

1. Persistence - keep trying different strategies and keep paying attention to your procrastination. This is going to be a lifelong problem, probably, with lots of causes that require lots of approaches - so keep going back to it.

2. Get any anxiety or depression treated. Seriously - it's the number one thing that has helped me. I'm still a procrastinator, but the difference between how much when I'm depressed and how much when I'm not is enormous. (Although working on procrastination willl help depression and anxiety too).

3. Distraction. This is counterintuitive, but there's something about distracting part of your brain that can make it easier to start things and persist on them - especially annoying, boring tasks. I've actually seen research on this. Listening to music, or a radio program while you do whatever you're trying to do can make it easier to get moving and keep moving.

4. Cues. Put cues for what you need to do everywhere. Tape lists of things you need to do next to your computer. Put signs on your mirror, rubber bands on your finger. Carry a notebook with a todo list. Set Outlook with lots of alarms for what needs to be done.

5. Make a big heave at the beginning. That's when you really need to make almost a physical effort to get yourself doing things - expect that to be hard and think of it as lifting weights or something. But once you're going on something usually it becomes self-perpetuating. It's much easier to keep doing something than to start doing something.

6. Routines. It's much easier to do something that you routinely do every day - day in day out - than it is to get yourself moving at random, unscheduled times when you can think of a thousand other things you'd rather be doing. Start by setting up a really easy routine you do once a day and try to build on it. Have once a day, once a week (say every Monday), and once a month routines (say pay the bills every 20th of the month or whatever).

7. Self-discipline is a skill, not innate. Think of it like building muscles. Start with easy things - like your posture, or something really simple, and practice it. The more you practice and find methods to discipline yourself the better at it you will become.

I was going to reply to this thread earlier, but I didn't get around to it. (LOL!!!) Ha, ha, I crack myself up sometimes.

But seriously, Yes I suffer horribly from procrastination. What makes it worse is that my husband does, too. Together we are quite the pair. It's a wonder we ever get anything done, and that our house is not falling down around us.

The ADD certainly plays into it. After procrastinating, I can get really inspired and get involved in the very same activity I was procrastinating about to a high level. This is what I refer to as hyperfocus. Sometimes I feel I just have to wait until inspiration hits and then I know the thing will get done. But one never knows when that will be. I'd like to be able to control or at least be able to predict the energy spurts, or figure out what brings them on.

Procrastination is the pits. I do hate it. Hope this thread leads to something helpful for all of us.

Ha ha! Well said!!!

Wow, That is a good list of things to do....

I am going to go up and do my dishes now, I've been really good at getting them done for about 2-3 weeks, I've had my morning routine. but this week, I've started to slip a bit.

I have been sleeping in last 2 days, had too many distractions that I do even when I'm not really enjoying the distractions, like sitting on my butt. Watching TV that is my biggest distraction!

Thanks for sharing your list for us procrastinators

Same here, always putting things off until the last minute.

I took a self help coarse and it was life altering.

"getting things done fast" by David Allen, I believe. It was life changing. He focuses on what he calls "working from zero base". What that means in short, is that he uses a system so that you literally have nothing on the brain, you have all your thoughts and tasks organized easily each and everyday. This gives you a serious sense of freedom from the cluttered brain effect. Helped me sleep better too, going to bed knowing you have everything taken care of and not having to sit there thinking about all the things you have to do or have not done.

Great coarse on tape, I suggest it. I tend to stray from the routine, and have to re listen to it every few months though. He is very motivating to listen too.

0ldsoul

Mine seems to be the road less (maybe least) traveled: I don't struggle against procrastination.

When there's something I think I need to do, I go on about my business -- and see whether I actually get to that thing I "need" to do or not. If not, I accept that as a message (from myself, from the universe, whatever) that I chose not to do it at that time. I may not find out till much later, if ever, "why" I so chose.

Example 1: There's a deadline for applying to some program that I think I may want to participate in but I'm not sure. If I find myself getting energized at the last minute and turning in the application, that tells me I really did want to do it. If not, I obviously didn't, so why fret about it.

Example 2: I'd been planning to work on my taxes but I feel like doing something else instead. I'm self-employed, by the way; I save all my receipts and keep pretty good notes from day to day, but I do my actual bookkeeping for the year only in the month or so before the tax deadline. I know full well that if I don't work on my taxes sometime, I won't get them done before the deadline. Still, I wait and see from one minute to the next if I feel like working on them or not. I'm likely to surprise myself in either direction: "There's not much happening online right now and I don't feel tired. I think I'll put in a couple of hours on my tax accounting." OR: "How can I be going to hear music when I'm not done with my taxes yet and the deadline is only two days away?" (but I go anyway.)

Somehow, it's always turned out that I do get all the forms filled out and mailed in time. That leads me to suspect that what I've been doing does somehow (paradoxically, that's how!) work for me. What tends to happen toward the last day or so is that I get a burst of energy, plow through the last few steps without getting bogged down in trivia (such as spending two more hours to calculate an additional deduction worth maybe $25 off my taxable income) -- and rather prefer the excitement of doing it this way to the relative boredom of doing it the "right" way.

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When you're procrastinating, procrastinate wholeheartedly and enjoy it. When you're not procrastinating -- don't.

i have this book and it is good, very comprehensive. it's written by 2 psychologists and tries to deal with the root causes. of course i haven't finished reading it though. as a friend of mine said which i'm now stealing: i'm a fantastic procrastinator.

I highly recommend reading this brief blog post with "The Cult of Done Manifesto". It's quite thought provoking. There are some neat graphics linked to the post as well.

http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3...manifesto.html

I'm working through The Now Habit by Neil Fiore right now (lol), and I'm really digging it.

I picked it up because the introduction described me to a tee - essentially avoiding things due to fear and anxiety. I don't believe that this is the cause of everyone's procrastination , but I suggest grabbing a chair in a bookstore and just read the intro. If it sounds like he's describing you, pick it up.

After keeping a time journal and a thought journal for a few days, I'm now moving on to vocabulary replacement about what I "have to" or "should" do versus what I "could do" or "want to" do. Good stuff.

Yes! The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. I think this is one of the best books about procrastination. I read it some time ago, and keep coming back to it and re-reading what I have highlighted. Very useful.

I usually have to force myself to do whatever needs to be done immediately. Ironically the longer I put it off the harder it is to make myself do it.
Or I completely forget about it.....