Motivating Yourself to Move Past Procrastination to Savor Your Just Rewards

Remember the agitated, bleary late-night looks on your friends' faces in college as they attempted to cram a semester of learning into the night before a final? Perhaps you were one of those crammers. Then you probably resented righteous-looking people like me who appeared to spend a pleasant bit of time each day on reading and class note taking before sailing through tests.

You'll be happy to know that people like me all get our comeuppance in other situations. How? Because everybody gets mind blocks to doing some kinds of tasks.

Mind blocks have nothing to do with mental acuity. They're very much a part of the human experience, albeit an irritating part for which most of us emotionally flagellate ourselves about, as we continue to avoid the task, thus incurring double damage. We all have them.

We just have different kinds of places we get stuck on different kinds of tasks. My blocks, for example, are with big or boring talks. I can easily slide into writing a brief article or going on a half hour morning run along the hills above my seaside village of Sausalito.

Give me a larger task, however, such as writing a book or going into the gym for an hour (minimum needed) work-out or a boring "time-waste" task like getting to the dry cleaners or gas station and I can become diabolically clever at deceiving myself into all the reasons why I can't start, right now anyway, but will sometime soon. Sound familiar?

Here's some tricks to getting yourself into a kind of task you often find yourself avoiding and even finding ways to feel righteous as you savor completion.


Vividly Specific Contrasting Scenarios

Picture the worst and best case situations -- in all their emotional details -- for not starting an important task now.

How bad could the consequences be if you don't get it done or done right?

How exciting could it be if you did it on time and superbly?

What if you intend to start it later today?

How many things "beyond your control" can prevent you from getting started? If you did, in fact, start it right now, when is the soonest you might be done if you get clear and focused, and allow no other interruptions until you get to a crucial state of completion or actually finish it?

What small indulgence could you give yourself when you're done? Take a break to savor time with a colleague who makes you laugh? Get a surprise gift for a friend who's been especially thoughtful recently? Dive into another, slightly less pressing task and actually get ahead of the curve for once?

See Your Success Again and Again

Since most nurses have time-pressed lives, allowing yourself to savor each success is akin to imprinting on your psyche the experience of satisfaction with a task completed. Just as athletes learn new habits to improve performance by watching videos of master athletes, then store up memories of those images of successful work-outs for their constant internal play-back, your stored-up memories of ease in task completion can motivate you to have those satisfying experiences more often. You are literally seeing yourself repeat your performance. That's new habit-forming. You will become more naturally inclined to dive in early and get more tasks completed in a state of inward and outward grace.

Take on a Big Task, a Bite at a Time

Large or unfamiliar tasks where you don't feel especially confident about your future performance are the ones you're most likely to avoid. Write down the steps to completion.

Call this approach "going slow to go faster later."
Writing will make the steps more real and doable to you and your commitment to the timetables you attach to each task become more vital. They are right in front of you. Post your " tasks and timetable" where you can't avoid seeing it. Tell others of your commitment to that sheet. These actions will place the task higher in your consciousness.


Reward Yourself and Savor Your Rewards

Plan your rewards ahead of time. Diligent nurse that you are, don't deny yourself the reward when you are done by rushing onto the next task. Life goes by too fast anyway. For example, when I complete boring tasks -- and not before -- I allow myself time to do something that gives me pleasure, such as a stop at a bookstore or time with a friend. When I finish a big important task I give myself a bigger reward such as a trip or new outfit.

Sidelong Glancing at It

Sometimes facing a task straight on just makes you freeze. Try to picture how to do it by "sidelong glancing", that is getting small glimpses out of the corner of your mental eye about how you can most easily do the task.

One of the best ways is to literally get moving and looking around. In times of mind-blocks, anger or tension, men tend to act out more while women tend to shut down, moving less. You will be more aware of your emotions and motivations when you get into motion. Consider walking, showering, eating or otherwise being "on your way" to doing the task. You will let your mind go naturally free.

When you are in motion and not focusing directly on what you have to do, especially if you can get outside into the fresh air and sunlight, you can literally see farther, gain a larger perspective and see how the parts of the task can fit together.

You will pull up ideas from lower in your consciousness, think of apparently unrelated ideas that do, in fact, have a bearing on ways to get the task done. Your unconscious mind becomes your friend in helping you recognize your best path to accomplishing the task. And the task will seem less onerous because you lift your mood when you put yourself in motion.

Want to learn more about motivating yourself past your blocks to moving ahead? After reviewing the books on this subject, here are great ones that I recommend:
1. 365 Ways to Simplify Your Work Life : Ideas That Bring More Time, Freedom and Satisfaction to Daily Work by Odette Pollar (1996)
2. 1,001 Nursing Tips & Timesavers : Quick and Easy Tips for Improving Patient Care (1997) published by the same group that brings you this magazine
3. First Things First Every Day : Because Where You're Headed Is More Important Than How Fast You're Going; Stephen R. Covey (1996)
4. It's About Time! : The Six Styles of Procrastination and How to Overcome Them by Linda Sapadin and Jack Maguire (1997)
5. Do It Now! : Break the Procrastination Habit by William J. Dr. Knaus (1998) and Get a Life Without Sacrificing Your Career
6. How to Make More Time for What's Really Important by Dianna Daniels Booher 1996).


Here are other helpful books that I also found to be worth perusing:
_ To Do Doing Done! : A Creative Approach to Managing Projects and Effectively Finishing What Matters Most by G. Lynne Snead, Joyce Wycoff (1996)
_ 500 Terrific Ideas for Organizing Everything by Sheree Bykofsky (1997)
_ The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Your Time by Jeffrey P. Davidson (1996)
_ To Do Doing Done! : A Creative Approach to Managing Projects and Effectively Finishing What Matters Most by G. Lynne Snead, Joyce Wycoff (1996)
_ The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management : Proven Strategies for Increased Productivity and Inner Peace by Hyrum W. Smith 1994).