How to Beat Procrastination and Get Organized

You have mail and paper everywhere. You resolve weekly to organize your home filling system. It just never happens. Why? You may have nothing but procrastination to blame.

Do I Procrastinate?

Being a procrastinator can stand directly in the way of getting organized. Some people have no doubt about it, they will loudly and directly label themselves procrastinators. Others are less willing to take on the title. So what exactly makes you a procrastinator?

Just because you are keeping busy doesn't mean you are avoiding this pitfall. If you compile a to-do list for the day do you begin by completing all of the smaller, "less important" tasks? If you want to stop procrastinating you have to admit that you are putting of your big, more important or crucial tasks. With what seems like less and less time in the day to get done what we need to accomplish putting off important tasks until a mythical "later" can have a large negative impact on us.

Is There a Reason?

There are a number of reasons we put off projects that need to be done. Knowing why you do it is a big step in the fight to stop procrastinating. Let's use your home filing system as an example, but these reasons can apply to other projects as well!

• I don't know where to start: Big projects can be complicated. Do you have papers stacked all over your home because you haven't set up a home filing system? Many people find the process of setting up a filing system daunting. Break up larger tasks into smaller steps, this will make it less intimidating.

• It is no fun: Let's face it for most of us working on our home filing system is not a fun activity. So we put it off. We do tasks that we enjoy more, or at least projects that we think we can finish faster! The truth is we need to stop procrastinating less appealing activities because they still need to be completed! Plan a motivator for yourself. Sometimes you need a reward to get yourself going. For example, when you clear the papers off your kitchen table you can go on a pleasant fall walk, eat that piece of chocolate you've been eyeing up, whatever you find motivating. Try to choose something that won't take you away from your task too long, you don't want to lose steam or get hopelessly distracted.

• I'm afraid of failure: This freezes many of us, whether we realize it or not. If we don't try to complete the task we won't fail. The truth is your first try at a home filling system MAY NOT be successful. Perhaps that is how you ended up with papers all over your home to start with. It is ok, stop procrastinating and get started! Sometimes finding just the right solution to a problem can take a couple tries or some time spent researching. There is a lot of help available out there once you take the first step and get started. If you are really stuck consider calling in a professional organizer for a few hours to get you started.

• I got distracted: The truth is that this is soooo easy to do. While the internet is a fantastic tool it also offers us an almost unlimited supply of distractions. Maybe you were just going to check your email, real quick, and then post a Facebook status, and right after that you will get started with your home filing system! Two hours later you forgot exactly what it was you had started doing but found a fantastic new blog and bought a pair of great shoes!

When you have a project to complete limit your distractions in the environment. This might mean powering down (gasp) your phone or computer for a while. Try this trick once you have a home filing system set up, don't stop moving with the papers in your hand to file. Don't put them down in a "waiting" location!

Bring in the mail and make decisions. Junk goes straight into recycling and the rest of your mail should be shredded, filed, or put into your active paperwork space. If you put down a stack of papers you are greatly increasing the chance that this pile will do nothing but grow as you give in to distraction after distraction.

Stop the procrastination today! The faster your home filing system gets organized the faster you'll start feeling better.

Heidi DeCoux is a professional organizer specializing in organizing paperwork and creator of The Fast-Filing Method home filing systems helping you stop procrastinating today. To get a FREE Home Organization e-Solutions Kit, which features the audio class: The Fast & Easy Way to Get Organized and Stay Organized Forever, visit http://www.clearsimpleliving.com/.

The Roots of Procrastination

Procrastination is a life-ruiner. But it doesn't have to be that way. Recovery is a well kept secret.

If you have ever truly entered into the dark heart of procrastination you will know that time management training, action plans and reward schemes are not the answer. Sometimes painful, even devastating consequences, are not strong enough to take on the power of procrastination. For it is a veritable superpower in the battle to get stuff done.

Procrastination is an enigma too. It resides within yet it feels like an invisible, outside force that physically bears down on the afflicted to keep them from the tasks they themselves have elected to do. This is the hardest part to fathom - it is not just the distasteful or the difficult task that is put off - but also the long dreamed of one. The mind divides and turns on itself.

Of course people do procrastinate what is disagreeable to them, what serves another but not them, what appears complex and burdensome. This kind of procrastination can have serious consequences but it has shallow roots. It is amenable to reform through strategies, training and reward or the simple revocation of the task as a goal - I no longer wish to do this! This kind of procrastination is objectively and emotionally logical.

No, the procrastination of which I speak - though it may also share those characteristics - springs from a deep underground source. Undoubtedly it has a logic but the rationale is hidden. That source is a place where to strike out and write the essay, complete the paperwork, set the wheels in motion is as impossible as if one were indeed being held down. The lucky ones will be visited by the spirit of productivity just in time but will be hurt and saddened by the inferior outcomes and the anxiety-soaked weeks that preceded action. The unlucky ones will watch their hopes and dreams, even the mundane chores that make up a life, slip away. In time, the promises to start tomorrow will cease to be given as they reluctantly conclude that some people just aren't meant to have a life. At its darkest, procrastination is an emotional suicide.

And yet, there is a way to overcome it, to reach down to the deepest roots and pull them out for good. A little-known group of simple (yes, simple!) techniques called energy or meridian therapies have sprung up over the last 20 to 30 years and they penetrate the unconscious by calling the problem to mind while tapping or holding points on the face and hands. Problems do not have to be relived, or endlessly discussed - they just dissolve. Of course, just as becoming a procrastinator was a process, so it is a process to 'unbecome' one. Shallow roots may be pulled in just one or a handful of sessions but deep ones will take a number of sessions to eradicate. There are now many of these EFT, TFT or TAT practitioners around the world. Many work over the 'phone or by skype.

I urge anyone who sees themselves in this article to get help now. If you sit on it for another year the only thing that will change is that you have lost another year and you will be one year more regretful. Your life is waiting for you and it is a beautiful place.

Eimear Mc Allister is a lawyer and a meridian practitioner who specialises in helping people overcome procrastination. When she worked for the Law Society advising and inspecting solicitors, she saw up close how devastating procrastination can be for all concerned and resolved to help people overcome it. Her unique combination of investigative skills gained at the Bar, intuition and energy methods make her a superpower worthy to take on procrastination. Find her at http://www.freedomfromprocrastination.com/. Give her your take on procrastination or ask about her services. She is based in the UK and works in person and by Skype.