There are could be any number of reasons for why you can‘t stop procrastinating: you might be doing something that you really don’t like doing. You might not know enough about the job or task that you need to do. You might be scared to fail at the task. You might lack confidence. Whatever the reason is, it tends to do you no good whatsoever.

As a former serial procrastinator I made a few conscious changes to improve my productivity and stop procrastinating in the most important areas of my life.

1. Understand the issue

This might sound a little strange, but think about it: how can you stop procrastinating if you don’t know why you are doing it? This tends to be the key to addressing many problems or issues which people experience - for me, it was only when I started sitting down and asking myself why I didn’t want to do something that I could produce a plan for attacking the task at hand.

2. Develop a PHASED plan of attack

When I was faced with a difficult task I used to look at it in one go and completely overwhelm myself. I would then decide that, because I didn’t know where to start, I would not start at all! Under these circumstances it is difficult to stop the urge to procrastinate. I found that the best way to deal with this was to break the task down into manageable pieces and determine what the key milestones were along the way to completing the whole task. Doing this enabled me to monitor the progress that I was making, which gave me the encouragement to keep going to the end.

3. Do what you need to do… and no more

Somebody once said to me that perfectionists were the biggest procrastinators… After thinking about it for a little while I realised that there may have been some truth in this. I would consider myself to be a perfectionist, and while this might be a good trait in some circumstances it does also mean that a job might seem larger than it actually is due to my desire to do a “perfect” job. This has often led me to procrastinate over some tasks which may not have been as big as I thought they were. The key to stopping this? Understand what the task is and what you need to do to complete well; in most cases the difference between a good job and a perfect job may not be worth the additional effort - or stress which you place upon yourself.

Whatever the reason is for why you can’t stop procrastinating, the fact that you have take the time to look up the issue (and therefore find this article) is a step in the right direction! There is a wealth of information and self-motivational tools out there that can help you determine the systematic causes and how to overcome them. One of things which I didn’t believe in at first were self-help books (why would a stranger think that they know the key to my problems?). But I have found the occasional books which I must admit have been very insightful. For more information please check out my website procra-STOP.com .