Crush Procrastination

Procrastination, doing low-priority tasks before high priority activities, robs us of valuable time:

• We usually do the least important things first because they are easier. 
• We put off the most important things because they are hardier. 
• When we work on the unimportant, we worry about the crucial tasks that aren't getting done. 
• We get tension headaches. Ulcers. High blood pressure.   

There are four major reasons for pro­crastination:

Laziness 

To defeat laziness, begin. Once moving, you'll tend to keep going. It takes greater energy to start an activi­ty than to sustain it. For example, if you're writing a screen play, put something on paper. Forget about sharpening pencils, arranging paper, reading one more script for inspiration. Write. Writers write.

The Quest for Perfection         

Nobody is perfect. Nothing created by anybody is perfect. Stop fretting about getting everything just right. Learn to do your best and accept the results. Expecting perfection never gets anything accomplished. To continue with the writing analogy, get that first draft done. Forget semicolons, active verbs, dangling participles, mixed metaphors. Just get something down on  paper. You can revise and rewrite later.

Indecisiveness                 

To overcome indecisiveness, use the ready, fire, aim approach. Fire it up there. Then aim it. Make some mistakes. Learn. Adjust. Move on.

Difficult Tasks 

Break down a difficult task into easy steps. Just do a little at a time. You write a screenplay or a book one page at a time. Write one page a day and at the end of a year you will have written 365 pages.