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THE THREE RESOLUTIONS

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THE THREE RESOLUTIONS

Tag Archives: procrastination

Some things can’t be put off.

03 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by threeresolutionsguy in Purpose and Service

≈ Comments Off on Some things can’t be put off.

Tags

"time management", EU Referendum, procrastination

“Almost always, there IS one thing among all others that must be done first.” Stephen R Covey

And more often than we’d care to admit, said ‘one thing’ gets demoted to ‘lower than the quick, convenient or more pleasurable thing’. How do I know this?

I know this because I procrastinate for Wales. As the national team strives ever forward towards whatever level of success their skills, self-belief and luck dictate, I find that when it comes to putting things off – even the things that I consider to be important – I am Gold Medal Standard.

I am currently involved in a project that I consider to be very important, even ‘legacy-related’. It is something I believe in, wholeheartedly. It relates to the provision of Third Resolution service and it requires Second Resolution competence in communication and time management. Unfortunately, sitting down and getting on with it requires First Resolution self-discipline, and like many procrastinators, that is where lies any failure to get on with it.

Which is not to say that I am not making progress. In recognising that I have a tendency to procrastinate, I also realise that this tendency also creates the ‘opportunity’ to exercise self-discipline and get on my arse and do it. (Deliberate choice of words, it involves sitting at a desk.)

Once a day I have to sit at my computer and do what I both want and have to get done. In our digital world this presents a challenge, because just as the average worker sits at that screen, a tumultuous number of ‘alternative opportunities’ not only arise, but actually demand a change of attention.

The ‘ping’ of a new email, the potential new ‘Breaking News’ which requires repeated visits to the Interweb, only to discover that said Breaking News is, in fact, the same news you heard about an hour ago but which now has a journalist in place confirming that what he said just now was still the case. The stimulus on the screen which sparks in your memory the existence of a ‘to-do’ you had not realised you had, er, to do, until the screen/noise/presence alerted you to it.

All of those things can take seconds to address, but their presence and ‘in your face’ nature pulls you away from that original commitment, and getting back to it takes effort.

In the final analysis, however, it is the execution of self-discipline that cures all this. Turn off the pings, resist the desire to ‘just check on’ the BBC News, shut your office door (a surprisingly effective anti-interruption technique that costs nothing), and GET THE HELL ON WITH IT.

And get on with it particularly if what it is you have to get on with is important, whether to you – or to someone about whom who care.

That last caveat also means that when your wife appears over your shoulder, you really, truly ought to change your focus from the screen to her. Your loved ones should always, ALWAYS be first. If only because, life being what it is, suddenly and unexpectedly they won’t be there to be first anymore.

Which brings me back to procrastination.

I really must stop putting her off when I’m busy ……….

 

For more on Time and Life Management, go HERE for the Kindle book, or HERE for the paperback version of my book.

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Life’s too short to wait to ….. (enter here what you’re not doing)

01 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by threeresolutionsguy in Time Management

≈ Comments Off on Life’s too short to wait to ….. (enter here what you’re not doing)

Tags

2016, Best Year, Best Year Ever, procrastination, seven habits, Stephen R Covey", Total Focus, YB12

“You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again.” Benjamin Franklin

I chose this quote from the ‘father’ of time management to reflect how much I recognise that procrastination can be an obstacle to my success, although I don’t do it as much as I think I do. I put procrastination off whenever I can.

I was recently at an event run by John Grant, the founder of the YB12 – Your Best Year Ever brand, the brand of which I am proud to be a part (see HERE) and as he was speaking I made the following note on my course workbook:

“I don’t have time to wait to be the best I can possibly be.”

I am 53, with a birthday next month. Optimistically, that’s only 4 years older than Stephen Covey was when he published The Seven Habits. Realistically, I am 35 years older than Jenson Button was when he entered F1, so that’s a dream that isn’t going to happen.

Back to my point. We all have futures, most of us plan for them. Some have detailed plans, others have an ‘idea’ of where they want to go and will get there. Some have no idea. (Some of those wear sports clothes but never break into a sweat unless running from the Law.)

For so many, me included, the recognition that we have a future, and accidents and illness aside a fairly lengthy one, means that we also subconsciously perceive that we can put things off ‘just a bit’, as if we’ll still have the same amount of time left to complete that action as we had when we put it off! A day here and there doesn’t matter, after all. Or does it?

In our culture, a day frequently becomes a week – something we put off on Monday was “better done on a Monday so I’ll do it next Monday.” A diet starts on the first day of the month, so that’ll be next month.” Or a birthday. Or “It’s November the 1st today. Year’s almost over, and Christmas is around the corner, lots of planning to be done, etc. etc. so I’ll set some New Year’s Resolutions and start on Jan 1st.” Except we also know that Jan 1st means coping with the feelings, chocolates and booze left over from the night before and the 1st becomes the 2nd, and in no time at all – “Where has the year GONE?”

The likes of Bill Gates†, Steve Jobs, Ghandi, Franklin, Lincoln, Churchill and so on (pick your own) didn’t procrastinate. They took action. They took action and achieved more than most of us ever will, in some cases with no computers, no Internet, and no electric light . They maximised their use of time through planning and by NOT putting things off.

We all have a future. For some it will be longer than for others, so there’s no equality there.

But we all have NOW.

Use it better. ‘Cos it just passed you by at infinity times the speed of light. Another one went while you read that. And that. Ad infinitum.

† I like it when personal development writers use Gates and Jobs as examples of people who succeeded without a degree. Pause. They were at Ivy League colleges. Clue: not cheap places, having money and connections helps, and they had to have passed seriously hard exams and processes to get in. The degree was a given, if they’d stayed.

*If you want to stop procrastinating, and live reasonably close to South Wales, consider this as a valuable opportunity to learn how to stop procrastinating and get what you want in 2016.

https://threeresolutionsguy.com/total-focus-workshop-january-2016-south-wales-uk/

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