by Cheryl A. Clausen
As a time management foiler you procrastinate for your own reasons. You procrastinate because you’re just plain stubborn, and you’re determined to show others that they aren’t going to push you into doing anything. You’re your own person, and you’ll do what needs to be done when and if you decide to do so, and not before. It seems logical on the one hand, but it has also caused you some pretty bad unnecessary grief. If what you are asked to do shouldn’t be done stick to your guns and don’t budge, but if deep down you know that it’s going to have to be done at some point you may be better off choosing when and communicating that to others.

To get to the bottom of why you procrastinate you need to identify what triggers you to want to foil the project through your time management behaviors. Are you more task oriented or people oriented? When you’re pushed to do people oriented activities and you prefer task oriented activities you’re naturally going to balk and avoid doing it. The other triggers could involve work pace, problems, and procedures. If the project at hand requires you to behave in a manner that is contrary to how you like to respond to situations involving work pace, problems, people, and procedures you will choose to avoid the situation by doing nothing.

You also need to think about how procrastination is serving you. When you procrastinate does that get you off the hook from some projects you really didn’t want any part of from the beginning? If it does that’s positive re-enforcement to continue the behavior.

Then you need to evaluate how procrastination is causing you problems. When you procrastinate does that end up causing you a lot of stress with severe consequences if you don’t meet a deadline? Obviously, that’s negative re-enforcement. As long as the positive re-enforcement exceeds the negative re-enforcement you’ll just continue the behavior unless you discover the underlying motivation to stop procrastinating.

To really become effective in your time management you want to understand what motivates you to take action. When you clearly understand what motivates you to take action in conjunction with your dominant time behaviors, then you can evaluate how you can best fulfill your needs. Everything in life doesn’t have to be on a tight time schedule. You just want to make sure that how you use time isn’t causing you more trouble than it is those around you.

Procrastination is a tough challenge. As you begin to understand why you’re procrastinating, and how your procrastinating it gives your the power to regain control of how you manage your time so your time behaviors serve you well.

Would you like to learn more about your time behaviors? Try this Time Management Analysis and find out where your opportunities for improvement are. When you absolutely must have measurable results to consistently and predictably get where you want to go for Superior Success…visit CoachingMegaAgents to start on your journey for superior success.

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