Procrastination and its contents — Episode 5: Remedies

Don't you just hate people who tease you with this and that while withholding what both you and they know is what you really want?

You don't?

Huh.

Without further ado, and in the hope that this is the final post in this series — which quite frankly I was already bored with after the first installment last Friday — here's how to solve your  procrastination problem.

1. Deal in concrete facts rather than abstractions. Sean McCrae, an assistant professor of motivational and social psychology at the University of Konstanz in Germany, reported last year in the journal Psychological Science "... that when you think of a task in less abstract terms you can get a handle on it and finish it sooner."

2. Take distant goals and break them down into more immediate ones.

3. Decrease or eliminate temptations — for example, move an email icon to make it less visible, turn off alert beeps, and delay email access.

4. Get the things you need for a task — pens, Post-It flags, binder clips to organize papers, etc. — out and put them on the stuff you need to do. It's a way of breaking down the barrier of resistance.

5. My favorite: get a kitchen timer like the one up top and set it for a five-minute countdown, telling yourself that when the five minutes is up you can stop the targeted task and do whatever else you like. Invariably all it takes is that initial breaking of the ice to make you think hey, I can do five more, and then you another five and pretty soon you're well into things and you no longer need the crutch to finish it. Very effective.

As always, the bookofjoe guarantee applies, to wit: If you're not completely satisfied with the results, let me know and I'll cheerfully refund every penny you paid for it.