Get Motivated Stay Motivated

Procrastination is such a difficult thing to avoid especially if we don’t like the task that we have to complete.  So we procrastinate and cram up when the deadline for the task is coming.  This is also true for simple tasks such as household chores.  We sweep the floor the following day instead of finishing it today.  What happens is, the floor gets dirtier and more uninviting to do the task.  The task also gets heavier.

Things have been written or advised here on how to avoid procrastination or how to overcome it.  I’ll add up another one which is to make your procrastinating hours useful for you.  When you procrastinate for a task, do something worthwhile.  We have that attitude of doing nothing when we procrastinate for a difficult task.  Instead of staying idle for hours, why not do lighter tasks to lighten your schedule.  By end of the day, you only have one task left for you to do.

Doing so will also keep you active physically or mentally.  That will help you get motivated and energized to do the task you’ve been avoiding to do.  Because sometimes laziness just gets in the way of starting your task and you just need a nudge to start doing it.  So doing a lighter task might get you energized or motivated to do a heavier one.

Procrastinators, as what I’ve found out, are made not born.  It is said that our home is our first school and our first teachers are our parents.  We grow within our home and therefore certain habits can be developed there as well and that includes procrastination.  As a child, we may not notice or realize what we are doing.  So the only ones who can prevent procrastination from developing are the parents.

Here are some points that parents may apply:

• Be a model to your children.  Don’t procrastinate.
• Discipline your children but don’t be too harsh.
• Make them understand why they should not put their tasks later or some other time.
• Teach them to use planners.
• Reward system.  Offer a reward for the things that they have done on time.
• Set a house rule of their tasks to be done on time.  Like dishes should be washed right after meal.

These are only few of the things that can be done to avoid your children from being a procrastinator.  It is best not to introduce to them what procrastination is.  Habits or values learned while they are young stays even when they grow old.

Here are the top 7 motivation articles I found today on blogs around the internet. Check out these inspirational and educational blog posts.

1. Robin Nobles says Recognition is the Greatest Motivator.  I read about it in her blog and I agree with her.
http://www.sew-wrc.com/idea-motivator/2007/02/22/recognition-is-the-greatest-motivator/

2.  How to Get Motivated is Demonstrated in this blog about goal setting.  Pretty inspiring post.

http://www.goal-setting-college.com/goal-setting/how-to-get-motivated-demonstrated/

3.  I found just 101 Ways for Self Motivation.  Cool post by Kenneth Foo
http://gloryinlife.com/motivational-inspirational/101-ways-for-self-motivation/

4. Motivation is important if you want to get smarter as discussed by Daniel Lemire.

http://www.daniel-lemire.com/blog/archives/2007/11/22/how-to-become-smarter/

5.  I found Seven Motivation Tips to Help You Write More and Sell More.  Very helpful post from Laverne Daley.

http://ldaley.wordpress.com/2007/12/30/seven-motivation-tips-to-help-you-write-more-sell-more/

6.  Finding your motivation helps you become an unusually happy non-smoker.  You can find out more from Cris’s post:
http://cure-alls.com/2006/12/how-to-become-an-unusually-happy-non-smoker/

7. The Educated Being Blog has a motivating post on overcoming procrastination.

http://www.educatedbeing.com/2006/07/14/overcoming-procrastination/ 

Here are the top 7 motivation articles I found today on blogs around the internet. Check out these inspirational and educational blog posts.

1. A post about lists of goals that could serve as a motivation for everyone.

http://orderofr.net/abby/?p=65

2. By stopping procrastination, you can be free. See it through this blog post.

http://www.written-in-stars.net/wp/2007/10/11/almost-free/

3. Ryan gave out reasons why he is not a millionaire and one of which is that he procrastinates!

http://www.ryanbibbey.com/2006/02/07/8-reasons-no-millions/

4. BOb Torres shared his idea about procrastination as a distraction in his cool blog.

http://www.bobtorres.net/2007/04/10/distraction/

5. Denise asks why she can’t get motivated to work. Find out the answers in her blog.

http://dee-rob.com/wordpress/2004/01/why-cant-i-get-motivated-to-work/

6. If you need motivation, then this blog post can help you find your own motivation.

http://rammelfirdaus.com/archives/day-3-are-you-motivated-or-need-motivtion/

7. ADD and Getting Motivated Questions and Strategies that are very helpful are found in this blog.

http://adultaddstrengths.com/2006/07/23/add-and-getting-motivated-some-questions-and-strategies/

Here are the top 7 motivation articles I found today on blogs around the internet. Check out these inspirational and educational blog posts.

1. The Info Weblog is just helpful when I was browsing through the internet looking for topics about goal setting. It has listed sites that are of good use for my search.

http://aztrx.net/135/goals

2. A post from the Fit Shack blog on how to surrender to a lack of motivation has a lot of good points where you would really be more motivated after you have read it.

http://www.thefitshack.com/2007/04/02/how-to-surrender-to-a-lack-of-motivation/

3. Yaro Starak has a nice blog and in his post, Getting Things Dene in Your Internet Business, he has pointed out the importance of motivation.

http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/238/internet-business-getting-things-done/

4. Good post from Fresh Blogger giving steps on how to deal with lack of motivation.

http://freshblogger.com/2007/10/how-to-deal-with-lack-of-motivation/

5. Let’s read and find out from a teacher how it is motivating kids when you yourself are barely motivated.

http://edwize.org/motivating-kids-when-you-yourself-are-barely-motivated

6. Help is waiting for those who lack motivation at :

http://www.setforsuccess.com/?hop=123ebooks

7. Stephanie Earls talks about procrastination as her biggest problem in life. See how she will get rid of it.

http://blogs.timesunion.com/aworkinprogress/?p=3

I have read from one of Steve Pavlina’s article about an effective way to overcome procrastination.  That is through timeboxing.  Timeboxing is a method where you select a small piece of the task you can work on for a small amount of time, say, 30 minutes. Then choose a reward you will give yourself immediately afterwards.  Rewards like watching your favorite tv show, enjoy your snack, or anything that would give you pleasure.  Something that you would like to look forward to.  It becomes a sort of a motivator for you.  Then after claiming your reward, schedule another chunk of time to continue your task and set another reward for it.  But this does not imply that you should really finish your task after 30 minutes or your given schedule.  If you feel motivated to do it, don’t stop.  The reward is only given to motivate you.  You can exceed your time if you feel like doing it, its a good advantage actually.

I have also thought of another way to overcome procrastination, relating to timeboxing.  We can also do our tasks, those which we are likely to set aside, while doing some of our hobbies.  Like watching tv, listening to favorite music, and the likes.  Of course, timeboxing is not applicable to all kinds of tasks.  This is just one of the methods that we can use to overcome procrastination.

For the rest of Steve Pavlina’s article, click here.

One cause of procrastination is fear. Having this notion over a task, like thinking that it is very difficult and that we don’t want to do it. So what we do is we avoid it. As much as possible, the task won’t be appointed to us or we do not have to deal with it. Another is we intentionally delay doing a task hoping that it will just pass until we will no longer do it at all.

There could be no problem letting a task just pass or expire, or maybe totally avoid having to deal with it. But, some tasks are interrelated that you need to do one to be able to accomplish the other. If you have goals, you have to go over it step by step to be able to accomplish it while understanding the difference between good and bad procrastination.
Most of the times, we feel like we just can’t do it or that we lack self-discipline. There are a lot of excuses that comes in our mind why we procrastinate over it. But what we must deal with is our fear of that task. We should overcome fear and build motivation over that task and do not think that we can’t do it or that we don’t want to do it.

In order to beat procrastination at work, one must stay motivated at all times. Procrastination is the habit of postponing tasks. Are you the type of person that procrastinates regularly? Maybe you are having a hard time finding interest with your work. Maybe you are having difficulty managing your day to day tasks. If you are getting the procrastination bug then you might want to consider the following pointers in order to manage your tasks and fight procrastination.

1. Write down your tasks or put them in an organizer. This is one of the most important parts of beating procrastination. When you write down your goals, you make a physical commitment of finishing these things. Studies have shown that if you write down your goals and aspirations, you are more likely to accomplish them.

When you write down your goals, you have to make sure that there is a deadline for them. If you write down your goals without planning to accomplish them at a specific date then you are simply prepping yourself up for another procrastination incident.

2. Do your tasks one by one. Do not be overwhelmed by the number of tasks you have to accomplish. If you do your tasks one by one then you will eventually finish all of them. If it helps, you can actually recall past incidents where you were actually able to accomplish tons of work by doing tasks one by one.

At the end of the day, you are not a super human being. You have to do things one by one just like everyone else. In order to accomplish great things, you have to work like everyone else does. Work on your tasks one by one and you will end up seeing results in the end.

3. Do not allow distractions to get into your way. There are a lot of ways to be distracted in your work place. There is your nagging office mate. This person will bug you in your cubicle or simply ask you to have coffee multiple times in a day. If this person is getting in your way then you should politely tell this person that you have to get some work done.

Other things that may distract you are your mobile phone, video games, and the television set. If these electronic devices are bringing you down then you should start avoiding them. If you are having a hard time getting detached to these devices then allot only a small amount of time for watching television, playing videogames, or chatting on the phone.

4. Stay healthy. One of the things that you should take care of when you are at work is your body. If you do not take care of your body then you will end up being unable to work. When you are unable to work then you will also be unable accomplish the tasks you have set out to do.

If you want to stay motivated at work then you have to stay healthy. Make sure that you have a balanced diet and make sure that you exercise. You should do some running two to three times a week. Cut down on your consumption of high sugar food and high cholesterol food. If you want to get things done on earth then you have to make sure that your body is in tip top shape.

With these tips in mind, you are going to slowly stop postponing your work. If procrastination is destroying your work and eventually destroying your life then you have to step up and keep these tips in mind. If you are planning to accomplish great things in your life then you have to do things one at a time. You have to get things done today and not tomorrow. Stay motivated and dump that procrastination habit once and for all.

Time management is one of the effective ways in beating procrastination.  But it hardly works for us.  I think we have to plan out not just how to manage our time but how to make our plan work for us.  Here are some tips on how to make our time management plan effective:

• Motivation.  Motivate yourself hard in following what you have planned to do for a particular period of time or how you have planned to do your tasks.
• Patience.  It would be hard to adjust with your time management plan at firs if you are not used to it so you need a lot of patience.  Just think that this is for your success.
• Keep tracked.  Observe your performance and see how you have improved.  This will help you see if your plan works for you and how you can further improve.
• Revise your plan.  If you see that your plan is not really working for you, you can revise it until you get the perfect time plan for your tasks.

Procrastination will continue as a burden in achieving your goals until you do something about it.  Procrastination will only be beaten by ourselves.  No one can get procrastination out of us.  It is our choice to beat procrastination, others may influence us but the choice still lies in our hands.

Always defeated by procrastination?

There are these times when we really want to do something, like a project, to finish it early and won’t have any problems later on.  But procrastination is just so tempting during these times.  We may have wanted to fight it at times, but its just so tempting.  Its like the perfect time to do something else.  So how can you fight this off?

Perseverance.  Have perseverance over your goal.  Concentrate hard on reaching that goal and do not think of any excuses why you should do other things.  Sometimes we would have this excuse that we are not in the right mood to finish something or that its too noisy to study our lessons.  Every time we think of this, think of your goal.  Think of it like you have already succeeded to give you the motivation and would make you to persevere more.

Perseverance gives you more courage.  Fight procrastination with perseverance.  Think of it as an enemy that you want to defeat.  An enemy you won’t allow to overpower you.