I’m declaring it official. It’s a pandemic. It cripples lives and businesses. We are all susceptible to it. So how do you recognise the signs of Procrastination, and what’s the antidote?
Symptoms:
> An increase in “wait”: Wait Watching
> An increase in displacement activity: Doing stuff that really doesn’t lead to the results you want.
> Capability paralysis: belief that you can do everything, therefore you should try to do everything, therefore you grind to a halt under a deluge of inconsequential ACTIVITY.
> Lack of direction: likely to stumble into anything that crops up, and flounder around without knowing which way to turn. Inability to work in a straight line.
> Excessive Listing: too many lists of things to do, without ever tackling any of it.
> Blaming and babbling: a lot of chatter and excuses about what hasn’t been done, and why it hasn’t, rather than doing things that need to be done.
> Chewing the Could: talking a lot about what could be done. Invariably leads to indecisiveness (camouflaged as “keeping our options open”, “staying open to opportunities in times like this”, and so on).
> Extreme Shuddering / Should’a ing… as in “we shoulda done this, and we shoulda done that” and “I shoulda done this, and I shoulda done that”.
> In extreme cases (and most cases are): can cause you to Be a Gonna… one day I’m Gonna do this, one day I’m gonna do that. In the end, you are a gone-r.
Antidotes:
> Clarity of direction. Purpose, Vision.
> Structure and Systems.
> O+O – clear the clutter.
> Apply the FEVER formula (Focus, Energy, Vision, Enthusiasm, Reason).
> VisualisaCtion techniques; take these once per day, and see the pandemic subside, and eventually free your life from it, like a cancer being cut from your body.
> Focused Daily Action Plan. No excuses.