Procrastination

"If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it." ~Olin Miller

In my research on procrastination I have found that I do not procrastinate because I have a mental illness, but because I do have a mental illness means I am more susceptible to procrastination.

Everyone procrastinates from time to time. I find this to be much of a daily challenge for me, so I went off in search of help....

First I wanted to try to figure out why people procrastinate and how is it linked to mental illness.
Procrastination can be made worse by depression. Having depression can make it hard to even get out of bed in the morning, so it makes sense that procrastination and depression go hand in hand. If I didn't feel like getting out of bed, of course I don't feel like exercising, calling the bank or even cooking dinner.

Another factor is perfectionism and irrational thinking. If I can't get it ALL done today exactly this or that way then what's the point? I think we set ourselves up for disastrous procrastination with this thinking. If you don't believe you can accomplish something, you probably won't. 

ADHD can play a role in procrastination as well as self-sabotaging behavior. Or as my mom would call it a "fear of success". Sounds crazy, but it's not. I think some fear that if they happen to finally get things together, achieve order and feel somewhat in control that it won't last and they will ultimately end up feeling like a failure. So how do we prevent ourselves from feeling that way? Don't do it, or find a way to mess it up! Not healthy or functional, but very true and hard to recognize and stop. It's all about comfort and fear.

So what will help? Here are some ideas:

-Break a larger project down into small steps/goals
-Focus on starting, rather than the task itself. 
-Do not focus on how things "should" be, or "should've been". Shoulda woulda coulda
-Create a To-Do list (number it by priority, do the important stuff first)
-Set a time frame for your list. "Pay the water bill by Friday" or "Clean the bathroom after lunch"
-Set a timer for annoying tasks, you never know you might catch motivation fever and keep going!
-Use the "2 minute rule" found Here
-Change your environment
-Minimize distractions
-Call in some help
-Watch your self-talk, are you over-complicating things?


Are there any tips or tools you use? Care to share and drop a comment!