Not only does this lead to stress and frustration, it can be quite demoralizing. The truth be told, after a number of such experiences, it is not surprising that a person just stops making the lists altogether.

In its place we just go to work each day reciting the following mantra: “Dear Lord, please just get me through the day.” Not a very pro-active stance, is it?

The unproductive approach of “Ready-Fire-Aim” is demonstrated by sitting down at your desk and jumping into which brushfire or crisis is seeking you. This is akin to being awakened in the morning with an air raid siren blasted into your ear!

In the CHAOSOVER and LIVING CHAOS FREE programs we train you to begin each workday by employing the ‘First Five Morning Tasks’:

By completing steps 1 through 4, you have taken what I promise is no more than six minutes before responding to your e-mail.

You have taken a macro look of your new day. You estimate the time of the meetings set (in and out of the office), the phone appointments and follow-up calls scheduled. What this has accomplished is a “reality check” on how much time remaining that you have to work on your stack of prioritized work (Turtle).

NOTE-When you had initially placed each item of work in your Turtle stack, you had taken the sixty seconds (literally) to fill in three spaces:

By knowing how much time you had remaining in your day, after the meetings, phone calls and e-mails awaiting you, you are able to REALISTICALLY determine the amount of items in your Turtle stack which can, and cannot, be completed today.

This process of “Self-Delegation” truly supports you transforming your life from reactive to pro-active. It removes from your life that “Ready-Fire-Aim” approach that had caused you such frustration and stress.

Lastly, because my programs have, since 1973, been dedicated to the FAMILY, this will have you far more often sitting down at the dinner table, at dinner time, with your family.

Do you avoid completing certain projects until the last minute when your back is up against the wall? Do you keep seeing the same items turning up on your “To Do List” day after day after day?

Are you one of those people who insists you work better under pressure? Then you are probably one of the millions of people in this country who suffer from procrastination and I do mean “suffer”.

Procrastination has many negative side effects:

• It eats up valuable time
• It reduces productivity
• It sabotages others
• It lowers self-esteem
• It causes an enormous amount of stress…just to name a few.

Now you may be asking yourself, “If procrastination is so bad, why do so many people do it?”

Some of the reasons are:

• I don’t like doing that particular task
• I don’t know how to complete the task
• I don’t like the person who assigned me the task
• I don’t feel confident in my skill level at that particular task
• The task appears too large to tackle.
• There’s too much work involved
• ETC.etc.etc

Regardless of the reasons for procrastinating, the results are still the same. The task does not get completed in a timely fashion.

Our Information Management program at ChaosOver, Inc. is designed to facilitate you in eliminating FOREVER the habits and patterns that have not served you. Procrastination is one of those behaviors. So how do you eliminate it?

You do it by processing the tasks or projects you have been avoiding, one at a time. Let’s use an example to illustrate the process:

Let’s say you have to write a report on a topic that doesn’t particularly excite you and is going to involve a lot of research and a lot of your time. The report was assigned to you on March 1st and is to be completed by March 15th. Today is March 6th and you still haven’t started it. You know you are procrastinating.

First step in the process is to go through a series of questions:

• Do I still need to complete this task? If the answer is yes go to question 2. If it is no, toss it.
• Can this task be delegated to someone else? If the answer is yes, delegate it. If the answer is no, go to question 3.
• What are the benefits of completing this task? In our example above the benefits may be :
  • My boss will be happy with me
  • The client will be happy and we may get more business from them
  • Our company will make money on this
  • I may get a raise, promotion, accolades
  • I will get it off of my plate and stop stressing over it.

• What are the consequences of not doing it? Again using our example:
  • My boss will be very unhappy with me
  • I could get fired or, at least, reprimanded
  • I could miss out on a promotion
  • I could be sabotaging a co-worker
  • We could lose a client
  • Our company could lose money
  • I will continue to stress over it and feel badly

Now that you have answered these questions, the task has taken on some life, some emotion, and has the ability to motivate you to action. So what do you do next?

You break the task down into its various parts. In our example above that may look like:

• I do an outline of what the report is to cover
• I identify whether I have all the information needed
• I identify resources for obtaining the information I am missing
• I do my research
• I create a first draft with completed information
• I re-write until I am happy with the end report

Now determine how long it will take to complete the first step ONLY. Let’s say you decide it will take an hour. Go to your calendar, whether it be a paper organizer or a computer program such as Outlook, and book yourself an hour to complete this first step.

NOTE- You must treat this appointment as a sacred commitment the same as you would if it was an appointment with a client. (Knowing that you have a deadline for this project and it is going to take several hours to complete, be sure to book that hour as soon as you can into your schedule.)

When you have completed step one, do the same with the next step and so on until the task/project is completed.

If you use this process with ALL of the things where you would normally procrastinate over, whether they are business or personal, you will find yourself eliminating the problem of procrastination FOREVER as you create the new habit of getting things done in a timely fashion.

The result… you will be happy, productive, effective, self-confident, and far less stressed. So go get started….NOW!