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Page 1: Stop Procrastinating – 4 Tips to Help You Get Things Done

gainpro f it inco me.co m http://www.gainpro fitincome.com/stop-procrastinating/

Stop Procrastinating – 4 Tips to Help You Get Things DonePhilip A.

Have you ever had a task that you would postponedays on end? Well, I know I had, and quite f rankly moreof ten than I would like to admit. Just a couple of daysago my girlf riend asked me to go with her shopping andI said I can’t, I’m busy working on my blog. But the truthis I wasn’t actually getting anything done, I was justsitt ing at my laptop and looking at what needed to bedone.

This has happened to me a lot of t imes and what’sworse about it is that a simple task that could havetaken me 1 or 2 hours to complete, ended up wasting allof my day.

Yes I know, I have a huge problem with overcomingprocrastination.

In this post I’ll be sharing a couple of t ips which I’ve just recently started to put in practice and which havehelped in increasing my productivity online.

For me, as f or other people I’m sure it ’s important to make the most out of the time we spend working onour websites, social media, creating content, especially if you’re working online only part- t ime and still need aday job to put f ood on the table.

So let’s do this! Bef ore I decide to write this post next week.:)

1. Focus on Start ing not on Finishing

Think about when you’re trying to push a car. The hardest part would be to just get the wheels rolling. At f irstthis would seem like a dif f icult task overall, but if you f ocus all your energy to get it moving, the momentumwill make everything else a lot easier.

If you f ocus too much on f inishing a project, whether it ’s a blog post, or website, you can sometimesbecome overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done and bef ore you know it you decide to do itanother day.

Whenever I’m writ ing a blog post all my concentration goes into creating the f irst paragraph. Because once Ihave that written down, everything else f lows easily.

What I do, is write the f irst paragraph in Notepad, so I’m not distracted by anything, and then once I’m happywith it I copy/paste it into my WP editor and take a 5 minute break. This is something I’ve been doing f or thelast month now and I can def initely notice that the time I spend on writ ing posts has decreased. Bef ore this,it took me up to 2-3 days to f inish a post.

Now, this strategy can be applied to whatever project or task you might have. All you need to remember is

Page 2: Stop Procrastinating – 4 Tips to Help You Get Things Done

too f ocus on the immediate action. If you’re just starting f ocus on completing the f irst step of the process.And then the second step, and so on.

2. Avoid Information Overwhelm

With all the f ree inf ormation that’s available online, all the tutorials, all the ebooks, all the guides, it ’s veryeasy to become overwhelmed and lose track of what you should do to improve your online business.

Sometimes you just got to stop reading and start taking action.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you need to stop learning, f or me learning is the biggestinvestment you can make to improve yourself as a blogger and as an online marketer.

The key to not getting overwhelmed by inf ormation which can lead you to procrastinate or worst quit alltogether is to only learn what you can immediately apply to your business.

So next t ime you see an email telling you to read that blog post or check out an ebook or a course, askyourself “Is this information going to help me with what I need to do right now?”. If not, then don’t read it, youwon’t lose anything except valuable time which could be spent on things that apply to what your doing rightnow.

Trust me I’ve made this mistake, not once, but lots of t imes, and I can tell you that overwhelming yourselfwith inf ormation that does not apply to what your doing right now will only give you an excuse to avoid doingwhat you actually need to do.

3. Aim for Progress not Perfect ion

“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.” Leo Tolstoy Tweet this

One of the things that lead me to postpone tasks and procrastinate was that if I couldn’t f inish a blog postor setup a site that day I wouldn’t start at all. And this points back to the f irst t ip, f ocusing on starting andnot on f inishing.

Sometimes we say “Oh no, I won’t be able to f inish thistoday, I better leave it f or tomorrow”. And tomorrowsomething else might come up and the thing you wantedto take care of ends up being pushed back.

When I started commenting on other blogs I said I wouldleave 10 comments each day. But there where dayswhen I was so busy that I didn’t have the time to leave10 comments. I told my self , I’ll leave 20 commentstomorrow. And tomorrow came and sure enough I didn’thave the time to leave 20 comments, and so on I keptpostponing this.

Instead of putting something of f because you don’thave time to f inish it, try getting at least “x” amount of work done. If I can’t leave 10 comments today, f ine I’llleave only 5, but I’m getting some work done.

If you wait until something is perf ect, you will wait f orever. What seems perf ect f or me, might not be thatperf ect f or you.

Page 3: Stop Procrastinating – 4 Tips to Help You Get Things Done

If you’re working on a course or an ebook or maybe a simple tutorial video, stop asking yourself what if thisor what if that, just put it out there, it might not be perf ect f or you but maybe that’s exactly what peoplewere looking f or.

4. Hold Yourself Accountable

Holding yourself accountable f or your actions is another way you can avoid procrastination.

What I suggest is to f ind a community within your niche and partner up with other people. Set up challengesf or each other that have rewards and consequences.

For example Darren Rowse f rom Problogger.net creates group writ ing projects f or his readers. The winneralways get’s a reward prize, and having a litt le competit ion will always provide you with that lit t le extramotivation to get things done.

You can f orm a Facebook group or a Google+ community where you share your goals with the othermembers and report each thing you have accomplished.

If everyone in the community shares their breakthroughs it will def initely motivate you to work harder so thatyou have something to share with your community.

I’m sure you’ve experienced how a litt le competit ion can motivate you to f inish projects f aster, so I why notput yourself in that posit ion once in a while.

Takeaway

Let’s do a quick recap of the 4 steps that can help you overcome procrastination.

1. Focus on starting, not on f inishing.

2. Avoid information overwhelm.

3. Aim for progress, not perfection.

4. Hold yourself accountable.

If at least one of these tips has stuck with you then I’ve managed to do a good job with this post.

And if you know other strategies that have helped you overcome procrastination please share them in yourcomments. I’d love to hear all about it.

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