5 Tips to Tackle Procrastination

Procrastination is a nasty little habit in which individuals habitually put off the things they need to do.  It’s a practice that hampers productivity and can lead to a mountain of stress, but this stress could easily be avoided with an effective plan to tackle it.  This article will explore some of the quickest methods for ridding procrastination from your routine.

Each tip will help boost your performance and make you more relaxed and confident about each new day.  If you are ready to rid your procrastination then keep reading for how to get real results in your life in a very short time.  However, the key to ending procrastination is in action.  You have to do these tips in order to see if and how they work for you.

1.  Make an Appointment with Yourself

If you are anything like me, your life is filled with a multitude of meetings, appointments and obligations.  You bend over backwards to make sure the people you work and live with are happy and content.  But how much time do you spend with yourself, planning your own happiness?

I urge you to make an appointment with yourself and just engage in self-talk conducive to your own success.  If you are not planning your happiness and scheduling “me” time then who is? Make important but realistic promises to yourself and vow to stick to them.  Try it, it will feel good I promise.

2.  Make a List

With each new day, you probably find yourself juggling a thousand and one thoughts.  You struggle to remember each of your tasks, but undoubtedly something will be missed.  This is a process that requires a lot of energy to maintain and will gradually create unnecessary stress in your life.

To avoid this, start each morning with a list—a prioritized list of the things you want to accomplish for that day only.  This is not a “wish” list, but an “absolute” must list. Use this list as a road map to navigate your day, crossing items off as you achieve them.  Remember to celebrate after each item is crossed off.

When it comes to tasks a list will help eliminate procrastination and keep you focused on what is really important.  Moreover, this list will release the thoughts from your head, and help eliminate the stress they can cause.  Another style of writing that many people prefer is keep track of their thoughts in a journal.

3.  Slay the Beast First

There is probably one particularly difficult task in your life that stands out.  It may be a task you’ve avoided for quite some time, constantly putting it off and making excuses for why it couldn’t be done.  It’s only an illusion that you cannot do it, eventually you will have to own up to your inability to learn.  Then you’ll wonder why you didn’t learn it sooner.  No wonder using this method eventually causes a great deal of stress.

What is the one thing that you could do that you are avoiding, but if you did do it, it would completely change your situation?  Put this “beastly” task at the top of your list and get to work attacking it first.  Focus on slaying it and stay proactive.  Why not make a game of it and pretend your actions will determine if the who wins between you and the beast.  The more inspired actions you take the less likely the beast will win.

The relief you will feel as a result of completion will be rewarding.  This will help provide a remarkable sense of momentum in your life, making subsequent tasks that much easier.  Just think, if you can slay the beast… you can do anything!

4.  Get organized

You may think organization has nothing to do with procrastination, but I beg to differ.  A cluttered life will almost always lead to a cluttered mind.  The mind reflects your ability to get exterior results and the disorganization in your life can make any project seem impossible.

Everything in your life costs you energy to maintain.  The more papers, to-do notes and unsatisfactory relationships you have in your life, the less energy you have to focus on what is really important.  When you are tired at the end of the day and don’t want to take the extra step for your dreams, getting organized can help motivate you to move forward.

Spend a day organizing your life.  If you cannot devote an entire day at once, schedule two - 8 hour days or three - 5 hour days.  Take time to catch up on whatever in your life requires the most attention.  Make a folder for each of your important papers and file them alphabetically.  Check and answer emails.  Pay those late bills.  You know where you have been neglecting responsibility, start by paying some attention there.

When you feel more organized you will be less likely to put off the tasks in your life.  They will seem more manageable and you will feel less stress.  When you feel less stress you will want to do more with your self and your time.

5.  Schedule Leisure Time

Everybody needs time to unwind and refuel.  Whether you are a hotel maid or a Wall Street millionaire, you need to have time in your life reserved solely for the things that are most important to you.  However, most people are caught in the trap of “I have to…, but I can’t”, or “I can’t, because I have to…”.

For example, you might not think that you have the time or money to take a vacation because you are paying down debt or saving for something special.  But if you don’t invest good quality time out for yourself you will soon be paying the price in other ways.  Your health or your spiritual well-being can suffer if you don’t take a break.

Most people neglect doing the things they need to do and then out of guilt try and do things they cannot do. Avoid this trap by simply taking time out of your schedule to take a healthy break. Stick to this time, relaxing only during the parameters you have set.

With your leisure time now set, use the other time to work diligently, pursuing each of your goals without procrastination.

Five Drug-Free Ways to Foster Mental Health

Each year, millions of dollars are spent on medications promising relief to people suffering the symptoms of mental illness.  Recently though, some physicians have opted to steer their patients towards alternate, drug-free treatments either in conjunction with, or in place of these prescriptions.  These treatment plans offer patients additional options to explore before turning to medications which can often have troublesome and even dangerous side effects.  Each therapy is unique, but they all seem to share one common characteristic:  Unlike popular medications such as Prozac and Effexor, which merely treat symptoms of depression and anxiety, these alternate treatments seek out and treat the underlying causes of the illnesses.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

· Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction was developed by Jon-Kabat Zinn, a PhD at the University of Massachusetts, in 1979.  MBSR uses intentional, present-moment awareness to help people tap into whatever is happening in their life as it unfolds, without judgment or curiosity.  The process, based on mindful meditation, helps people to become more skillful and creative in their responses to real world stimuli, eliminating destructive habitual patterns such as anxiously awaiting the future, chronically focusing on the past or just going through the motions of life without regard to what’s happening in the now.  It is universal and easily accessible, allowing people the ability to develop intelligent and thoughtful reactions to events and circumstances as they are happening, and to construct unique, healthy reactions in response.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy

· Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is similar to MBSR, in that it combines present-moment meditative practices with conventional cognitive therapy techniques.  The therapy, developed by Zindel Segal, Mark Williams and John Teasdale, and based on Zinn’s MBSR model, allows participants to cultivate a right-now awareness of what is happening within them.  MBCT uses Eastern meditative techniques and cognitive therapy to help patients become acquainted with the different modes of the mind that can often characterize mood disorders and allows for the development of new, healthier responses to harmful stimuli.  By focusing on what “is” rather than all the potential negatives that “could be,” MBCT helps people break harmful, repetitive responses and patterns that can lead to a variety of disorders such as anxiety and depression.

Subconscious Restructuring

· Most treatments for conditions such as depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) look for external causes for the trauma affecting individuals, and then seek to treat that cause.  This can be a very long and expensive journey for patients.  While certainly well-meaning, treatments such as these are nothing more than a series of educated guesses that can take years to complete and are often completely ineffective.  Subconscious Restructuring offers something quite different.

Developed by PhD Kelly Burris, SR coaching takes a look at how individuals process information at the deepest level of their subconscious.  It guides patients through a method which allows them to recognize and have immediate access to potentially harmful subconscious patterns, and thus be able to alter or eliminate them. Using this technique, people are able to identify the internal cause of their disorder, rather than speculate on possible external factors.

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

· Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation is a noninvasive medical technique designed to magnetically excite the neurons of the brain.  Weak, electric currents are introduced into the tissue that makes up the brain which in turn triggers brain activity that can be studied and evaluated.

rTMS, as it is commonly referred, lasts longer than a single stimulation and it is thought to either increase or decrease the excitability of what doctors call the corticospinal pathways within the brain.  Scientists believe this stimulation technique can effect changes in the synoptic efficacy of the brain and has been offered as a treatment solution for long-term depression and other illnesses.

Magnetic Field Therapy

· Magnetic Field Therapy is a process that uses magnets to help treat mental and physical ailments.  The theory behind the efficacy of MFR is that in order to maintain health, the body must be in balance with its electromagnetic field.  Utilizing electrically charged or static magnets, practitioners seek to alter the magnetic field in patients with emotional disorders, by bringing their bodies into balance with the earth and the magnetic field that surrounds it.

The advantages of the therapies listed above, in addition to other available treatments not mentioned, are significant.  All of the treatment plans focus on the causes of mental and mood disorders, and they give people who are suffering from the often frightening symptoms, a variety of treatment options to explore before resigning themselves to a medication ritual that is often arbitrary and dangerous.