Yes, there are two enemies that most of us battle on a daily basis! We face them every morning when we wake up, and they follow us around all day. Who are these enemies? Mr. Procrastination and Ms. Avoidance. They live inside your mind and feed you with excuses. Come on – you have heard them saying things like, “You can do that later.” “This is more interesting and fun, let’s do this now.” “You don’t know how to do that, so just put it off.” “This needs to be done but we hate doing that, so let’s do something else!”
Why do we do this? We take the path of least resistance. Like this blog. I know everyone and their brother is supposed to blog at least thirty-thousand times a week. But I hate it. I love to write, but I hate thinking that I have to put some spectacular article together that will go viral when I know that probably everyone stopped reading past the first two sentences already! Oh – you are still here?
Okay then here is The 5C Solution to avoiding avoidance:
1. Clarity – get really clear on what this task will accomplish and why you need to do it
2. Commitment – set a timer for 18 minutes (the amount of time shown to maintain
concentration) and don’t do anything else until it is done. Think of a reward.
3. Challenges – distractions. So turn off the phone, don’t look at email, TV, or talk to anyone
4. Create a Plan – if you need help, call someone who can talk you through it. Just make
sure you stick to the topic. Tell them you have 18 minutes to finish this task and have them
check back.
5. Celebrate – go reward yourself!
Follow these simple steps and you will be Mr. Productivity and/or Ms. Accomplishment! Now, go get that thing you were avoiding by reading this blog done!