Just Get Started!
Edwina Frazier
Communications Specialist | Learning and Development Specialist | HR Training | Content Creation | Leadership Development | Storyteller
Here's what I found when I looked up the word procrastinate.
Procrastinate: (verb) postpone or delay needlessly - "He procrastinated the matter until it was almost too late" (synonyms.com)
The lightbulb moment was instantaneous! When I delay, drag my feet, stall, dilly-dally, or postpone doing what I KNOW I need to do, I'm subconsciously hoping the matter will settle itself by default because I've run out of time!?You probably already know that if you're not intentional in your choices, a consequence of choice will be made for you.
Here's an obvious example: If you don't pay your electric bill, your lights will be turned off. You may not intentionally choose to be in the dark, but your choice not to pay the bill resulted in a consequence from a choice you indirectly made and thus received by default.
We must be clear about WHY we are procrastinating. Last Thursday, I had an idea for the following week's newsletter. I wrote it down and began thinking about how to flesh it out and provide practical applications. I thought about it through Thursday, the next day, and the weekend. By Monday, I should have been ready to quickly knock out a 300-500-word post. Instead, I procrastinated most of Monday, ruminating on why we sabotage ourselves with this behavior. Of course, I knocked out many other things, but at 4:43 pm CST, my newsletter still needed to be published.
The main culprit was that I needed to figure out where to start. The simple solution was to get started!
Do you know the law of motion that states an object at rest stays at rest? That is, until a force acts upon the object at rest to cause it to move. Once it's in motion, it wants to stay in motion until a force acts upon it to make it stop. Now that's my short and sweet paraphrase of Newton's Laws of Motion, but the application for procrastination still works!
You don't need a fancy formula or complicated routine to follow.
Just get started and allow the task's momentum to move you forward. Intentionally do this until the task is completed. Case in point? It is now 5:19 pm CST, and I'm about to publish this newsletter!
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You've got this!
Your partner in success,
Edwina ?