You Can Beat Procrastination: you just don't know it... YET

By Michael Finlayson

“Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.”
Napoleon Hill

Procrastination is such an irritating thing! You have things that you know that you have to do, you know that at some point you will do them, but not just right now. If you've had enough of watching your life pass you by, if you want to take control of who you are, then, You Can Beat Procrastination is just what you need. You can win, you just don't know it, yet.
Procrastination is more than just a bad habit, it’s a time stealer, it takes time from you that you will never again have and it wastes it. We know all this, we know that at some point we are going to have to do what we’ve been putting off, and yet still we waste our time with pointless tasks that don’t move us one step forward.

We've all procrastinated at some time or another. Procrastination is something that we can laugh about, but think about this. What if procrastinating is eating into your valuable study time, what if procrastination is affecting your performance at work. Not so funny now.

In this book I look at all aspects of procrastination, from procrastination itself to how it affects you as an individual, to how you can turn things around in your life by beating procrastination, and start moving forward with your life. I have included a series of exercises in the book so that you can personalize what you are reading, and make it much more relevant to you.

Good luck, and don't forget that you can beat procrastination, you just don't know it, yet.

“Don't wait. The time will never be just right.”
Napoleon Hill

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Finlayson
• Release date: Jun 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301936632

Michael Finlayson

My writing interests are based around personal development in it's widest sense. So apart from personal development I like at relationships and health and fitness, which in essence is everything that goes into developing you the individual. I have great hopes of writing the next great fantasy novel (I live in hope), I have some great ideas, unfortunately the plot is being shy, so it's taking an agonizingly long time to haul it out of my grey cells. Apart from my book writing I have a few sites up, which have helped me to develop my ideas. I am a prolific reader (not good when I should be writing). A health condition means that I have to get in plenty of walking and exercise, and worryingly I have become a big fan of indoor rowing (I don't rule out insanity). Apart from being called mad, I have been categorically assured that there could only ever be one of me, which on reflection is probably just as well :)

Book preview

You Can Beat Procrastination

You just don’t know it… YET

Published by Michael Finlayson at Smashwords

Copyright © 2013 Michael Finlayson

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder. Copyright © 2013 Michael Finlayson

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Disclaimer

This book contains information about procrastination. The information is not advice, and should not be treated as such. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, we exclude all representations, warranties, undertakings and guarantees relating to the book. This book has been written for education and information. As with all things in life you are personally responsible for how you interpret information, and how you implement information.

Table of Contents

What is Procrastination

Procrastination

The Joys of Procrastination

Time Management

You Need a Plan

What Are Your Strengths & Weaknesses

Your Assertiveness

Your Self-Esteem

Dealing with Your Inner Negativity

Take Hold of Your Willpower & Get Motivated

Anger & Frustration Management

Stress Management

Planning & Organization

Bringing Everything Together

What is Procrastination

Given that this is a book on how to beat procrastination, I thought that it would be a good idea to see how it is viewed through the eyes of others. The following chapter is made up of various quotes on the nature of time and procrastination, as well as a fascinating article from Wikipedia.

Procrastination is the bad habit of putting of until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.

Napoleon Hill

It’s great to say that I’ll do it tomorrow and then tomorrow never comes. But if you don’t do it now, then when will you do it?

This is the Wikipedia description.

"In Psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing more urgent actions with tasks less urgent, or doing something from which one derives enjoyment, and thus putting off impending tasks to a later time. In accordance with Freud, the pleasure principle may be responsible for procrastination; humans prefer avoiding negative emotions, and delaying a stressful task. The concept that humans work best under pressure provides additional enjoyment and motivation to postponing a task. Some psychologists site such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated

with starting or completing any task or decision. Other psychologists indicate that anxiety is just as likely to get people to

start working early as late and the focus should be

impulsiveness. That is, anxiety will cause people to delay only if they are impulsive.

Schraw, Wadkins, and Olafson have proposed three criteria for a behavior to be classified as procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying. Similarly, Steel (2007) reviews all previous attempts to define procrastination, indicating it is "to voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay.

Procrastination may result in stress, a sense of guilt and crisis, severe loss of personal productivity, as well as social disapproval for not meeting responsibilities or commitments. These feelings combined may promote further procrastination. While it is regarded as normal for people to procrastinate to some degree, it becomes a problem when it impedes normal functioning. Chronic procrastination may be a sign of an underlying psychological disorder. Such procrastinators may have difficulty seeking support due to social stigma and the belief that task-aversion is caused by laziness, low willpower or low ambition. On the other hand many regard procrastination as a useful way of identifying what is important to us personally way of identifying what is important to us personally as it is rare to procrastinate when one truly values the task at hand.

Psychological

Psychologists continue to debate the causes of procrastination. Drawing on clinical work, there appears to be a connection with issues of anxiety, low sense of self-worth, and a mentality. On the other hand, drawing on meta-analytical correlational work, anxiety and perfectionism have no – or at best an extremely weak – connection with procrastination. Instead, procrastination is strongly connected with lack of self-confidence (e.g., low self-efficacy, or learned helplessness) or disliking the task (e.g., boredom and apathy). The strongest connection to procrastination, however, is impulsiveness. These characteristics are often used as measures of the personality trait conscientiousness whereas anxiety and irrational beliefs (such as perfectionism) are aspects of the personality trait neuroticism. Accordingly, Lee, Kelly and Edwards (2006) indicated that neuroticism has no direct links to procrastination and that any relationship is fully mediated by conscientiousness.

Based on integrating several core theories of motivation as well as meta-analytic research on procrastination is the temporal motivational theory. It summarizes key predictors of procrastination (i.e., expectancy, value and impulsiveness) into a mathematical equation.

Physiological

Research on the physiological roots of procrastination mostly surrounds the role of the prefrontal cortex. Consistent with the notion that procrastination is strongly related to impulsiveness, this area of the brain is responsible for executive brain functions such as planning, impulse control, and attention, and acts as a filter by decreasing distracting stimuli from other brain regions. Damage or low activation in this area can reduce an individual's ability to filter out distracting stimuli, ultimately resulting in poorer organization, a loss of attention and increased procrastination. This is similar to the prefrontal lobe's role inattention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, where underactivation is common.

Mental health

For some people, procrastination can be persistent and tremendously disruptive to everyday life. For these individuals, procrastination may be symptomatic of a psychological disorder such as depression or neurological disorder such as ADHD. Therefore, it is important for people whose procrastination has become chronic and is perceived to be debilitating, to seek out a trained therapist or psychiatrist to see if an underlying mental health issue may be present.

Perfectionism

Traditionally,