Goal Setting Towards Simplification II: Overcoming Procrastination

I’ve never liked that last-minute crunch that comes with lack of planning – you know, when you underestimate what needs to get down and then rush down to the wire to finish a project. Some people thrive under that pressure; I hate it because it never lets me get to all the details, I feel rushed and panicked, and my work always feels sloppy and unprofessional [remember, I’m also a recovering perfectionist]. The cautious, controlling part of my personality prefers to sketch out a general outline of steps well in advance of the deadline, and then chip away at this list as the deadline approaches.

So far so good. But here is where I would run into trouble. As I mentioned earlier, I’m great at thinking up the details but horrible at prioritizing them, and you can imagine the list for every project can quickly grow unmanageably long, to the point where I often felt I needed to be working a bit on every project on a daily or weekly basis. Then I’d burn out, procrastinate and push off certain tasks, and their constant presence on my list wearied me further. Intellectually, it makes great sense to tackle a tiny chunk every day and slowly tame the Project List that way, but on an emotional level it was just too draining. I was putting a lot of time and energy into procrastination and avoiding procrastination, and beating myself up for not being productive. I think I even swore off To Do Lists for awhile because they produced nothing but guilt.

It finally dawned on me that I was working at cross-hairs with my own temperament. I was working against myself in setting up goals, and therefore wasting a lot of energy to try to achieve those goals.

I realized that I’m no tortoise, I’m more like the hare, but unlike the hare I make it to the finish line within deadline parameters, and thanks to discovering this about myself, I actually make it with more time to spare than before. Rather than spacing out my progress with little assignments on a daily basis, I prefer to work in spurts, setting sizable chunks to accomplish in a week, say, and then giving myself a 2 week break from the project before I tackle the next major milestone. This allows me to break large projects into smaller, self-contained modules, which keeps daily tasks in perspective and allows me to track progress in a concrete fashion, and it avoids burnout by giving my mind and creativity breathing time from every project. Each week I just rotate through my “priorities” for the week, and it keeps things fresh by providing constant variety.

By making this small shift from a small, steady trickle to dry spells punctuated by substantial gushes of work, I’ve been able to tremendously cut down on procrastination. I feel better about myself and enjoy the process much more than I did before, because I can concentrate on a few things at a time, rather than trying to make creeping, and often immeasurable, progress on everything.