Never Procrastinate Again by Mani Vaya

Never Procrastinate Again – Mani Vaya

Description Using a simple 5-step gap filling system It’s 9:03 am Monday morning You have big intentions to make this the most productive day in a long time. You have a smile on your face. Are you going to work. You know you have a big project to finish today. You start your computer. AND….. Rather than jump straight into this big project, what are you doing? You are checking Facebook. You check out Reddit. You are checking your favorite news site. You check your email. You do a bunch of different things, but you keep putting off working on a big project that you need to finish today. When you check your email, you find something that you need to reply to. And a small task that you need to take care of. And you are responding to another email from yesterday. 11 am However, the big project still weighs on your mind. And you don’t do anything about it. You procrastinate all the time. You still hope to make this day a productive one in a few months … but those hopes quickly faded into the distance. And then you finally get to work. But you’re working on a small project that a colleague just requested via IM. You try to finish it while the big project still weighs on your mind. You check your most recent Instagram post and how many likes it got. It’s nice to get 3 more likes in the last 1 hour. 12 hours You are working on other, smaller projects .. but you just keep putting off the big project. Even if you know that this is the most important and valuable thing you need to work on. You know that in order to make significant progress in your business / career, you have to do your best work on these big projects. 2 pm You consciously know that a big project is extremely important to you … but you still don’t take action. You procrastinate all the time. You are disappointed. You know you are procrastinating, and you still continue to procrastinate. And the more you feel bad about procrastination, the more you try to get a break from this overwhelming feeling. So you resort to even more emails, facebook videos, news sites, and so on to get a breather from this procrastination overload. 5:01 pm You finally work on a large project for 47 minutes and do a bad job. You are not proud of this. But you did the best you could. You didn’t have much time. 7:25 pm You just got home. You have a long to-do list this week (call your mom, go for a run, check finances, organize dinner with friends), but decide to check what is on TV because it has been a busy day at work. You get sucked into the TV. You try really hard to turn on your computer and check your 401 (K) investment, but keep watching TV instead. You know you need to call your mom tonight. You tell yourself that you will call your mom right after you finish watching this funny Facebook video. And before you know it … this is video number 10. You still think about calling your mom when you fall asleep.

Friday, 7:43 am The alarm is blaring. You wake up feeling a little empty. A bit dejected. While you set out to make this the most productive week in recent months, it didn’t live up to your intentions. Even if you had great intentions … so far the result has been pretty miserable. 8:07 am You are in the shower and think to yourself …. – Today everything will be different. I will not hesitate today. I’ll do everything today. ” You make a long to-do list as soon as you jump out of the shower: Big project # 2 at work Call Mom Improving your investment strategy for 401 (K) Working on taxes Guitar Practice develop You’ve been trying to complete some of your big projects all week. But you keep putting off big projects because they seem overwhelming. 10: 27 am You check your email when you suddenly realize ….. I need to work on my big project # 2. But you don’t feel like working on it yet. It’s too big to start right now. So, you force yourself to work on side task # 17 …. just to make you feel like you’ve done something useful. 1:43 pm The midday slump hits you. You dined with friends for a long time and now you feel tired. So you don’t feel like you’re ready to work on big project # 2. So grab a coffee. And chat with friends. And check the likes on Instagram. And funny videos on Facebook. 2:52 pm You’ve finally gotten to work on your big project # 2. You start out with big intentions to finish it before the weekend arrives. But as you dig deeper, you realize that it is quite difficult. You delve into it, but you do not enjoy it at all. It looks like hard work. You are making very little progress. So you decided to give yourself a little break by checking Reddit and Facebook. You are in the rabbit hole of social media. 6:02 pm You are driving back to work. Big project # 2 is still incomplete. Now you have to work on it over the weekend. You feel frustrated with your lack of progress throughout the week. You get angry about your inability to follow your good intentions.

You know you have to work on your business project, but for some reason you keep watching funny Facebook videos. You feel that you cannot control your mind. You know you need to train, but instead you are glued to the TV and before you know it … it’s too late to train. And you are tired. “I will definitely work out tomorrow,” you tell yourself. But wait …. you said the same to yourself yesterday. And the day before. You know you need to hire a new employee, but you keep putting it off because you’re not sure if you can find the perfect candidate for the role. Instead, you decide to roll up your sleeves and just keep doing the work yourself. You know your business is suffering … but you are stuck. You know you need to read this business book, but it’s been 3 weeks since you received it and you only read 3 pages. It seems intimidating. You know you have an important coding project to work on, but it seems like it will take too much thought right now. You feel that you are not ready for this. So you do something simple, like checking news sites and forums. You know you need to call your mom … you haven’t spoken to her in 13 days. She is lonely. You feel guilty about not calling her. So you open a bag of chips and start browsing youtube …. to avoid that guilt feeling. You know that you need to invest your money properly, but the whole process seems very overwhelming. What if you make the wrong decision? What if you lose money in the process? You’ve been thinking about investing for 3 years … but you haven’t started investing yet. You know you need to start eating healthy … but today, despite all your best intentions … you choose this pizza over salad. You feel that you cannot control your mind. You know you want to start a business and leave your 9 to 5. But you’re not sure if you have what it takes to succeed in business. You have been looking at it for the past 5 years. You think about it all the time …. while people half as talented as you built a successful business within that time frame. You know you need to clean your house … the dishes build up and the kitchen starts to stink a little. However, you don’t “like” doing the dishes. You hate him. So you keep on procrastinating You know you need to practice playing the guitar. It is good for your mind and your soul. But right now, you just want to scroll through Instagram and check how many likes your posts got. You know you need to organize a dinner party with friends. But you put it off all the time because you ask the question: “What if it’s a trifle? What if no one shows up?” You feel that it is not urgent. So you go back to checking out a few more news sites. You have a long list of important projects to complete, but you feel like you have no enthusiasm for these projects. Thus, you keep waiting for that perfect time when you will be excited to complete these projects. If this is you, don’t despair. You can suppress procrastination. Unfortunately, most people rely on motivation to beat procrastination. But the problem is that motivation is one of the most unreliable strategies for dealing with procrastination. At one point, you feel motivated, so clean up your seat for the next 1 hour. And then you run out of motivation and don’t clean this place for 17 days. Plates and shoes are piled on the floor. One day, you install a motivational app …. you feel energized to change your financial situation …… you work on your finances in 27 minutes. And then you don’t check them for the next 6 months. You once read an article on creating a training habit. You feel anxious to exercise, so you buy new boots and shorts. And then you run out of motivation and don’t use these shoes for 3 months. Going through these bursts of motivation and then failing over and over again is extremely exhausting. Motivation doesn’t work against procrastination. This is not a strategy. You see, the most successful people don’t rely on motivation. Instead, they have mental models and systems to defeat procrastination every time it raises its ugly head. I know this because I have struggled a lot with procrastination before … I still remember the day when I was 2 years behind my taxes. That’s right, I haven’t filed my taxes and was 2 years late.