Do It Now or Do It Later?

Have you ever had something you had to do that wasn’t clear at the time, so you put it off and put it off for weeks, only to find when you finally did the task that it was easy and only took five minutes to complete? Did you think to yourself that if you knew up front that it would be that easy, you would have done it right away? Do you ever end up missing opportunities because you put something off until it was too late? Maybe you missed an important submission deadline or allowed a subscription you thought of cancelling to auto-renew. Before you allow this behavior to squander another opportunity, read about the three points offered below to see if they can help you be sure to seize your future opportunities instead.

• Don’t default to inaction because the task is not totally clear

• Write out the task’s steps to identify what is needed and see how quick and simple the task really is

• Make a reminder of how weighty it gets to have several to-dos in the back of your mind

  • Writing down those things and specifying what you need to complete them can help you feel less overwhelmed and get tasks done much more promptly

  • Put this reminder in a place where you will come across it frequently

Don’t default to inaction

First, recognize that it’s normal to default to inaction when the steps to accomplish something aren’t totally clear in your mind; this lack of clarity could be called a psychological barrier to action. You have to acknowledge this tendency as the first step to overcoming it. If the task is simple and really just requires a few minutes of thought and productive action, acknowledge your inertia and just make the intentional decision to push through that inertia to get the task done. If the task requires more or you’re in a moment particularly devoid of motivation or energy, note the task on your to-do list so you don’t need to expend mental energy remembering to get to the task at the right date and time later.

Write out the task’s steps

If you saved your task for later or what to do isn’t obvious yet, try to write out the steps needed to complete the task. This will help you identify what is needed and will likely reveal the task to be simpler and less daunting than you first felt. In addition to what needs to be done step-by-step, note what resources you’ll need for each step. Resources might include estimating how much time, what tools or materials, or purchases are needed for each task step. By breaking the overall task into smaller, easier to accomplish pieces, the overall task will seem more doable. You will have more confidence and clarity about how to complete the overall task, lowering your psychological barrier to action. Using this technique can help you overcome the tendency to procrastinate on a task without even realizing you’re doing it. Think about the cost of lost opportunities from defaulting to procrastination on many tasks again and again over a long period of time!

Make a reminder

Another way to help yourself overcome this issue is to make a reminder where you will see it often (like a sticky note on your fridge or the bathroom mirror). Remember how weighty it feels to keep several tasks floating around in your mind because you’ve automatically put them off instead of getting them done or at least writing the steps to getting them done. The note could remind you of an opportunity to gain or an opportunity you’ve lost before by procrastinating too long, or you could consider this:

Time now > Time later, but Time now < Time later + Feeling less overwhelmed now

An hour of free time today might be more valuable than a not guaranteed hour of free time in the future, but could it be worth getting something done now so the task doesn’t loom over you annoyingly for the next two months until you finally get yourself to do it?

Conclusion

You can’t change the past, but you can use it to make your future pursuit of opportunities more successful. Keep in mind that it’s natural to put off something that’s uncertain or unclear; work deliberately to define a task to reduce its uncertainty or unclarity, and you will get more things accomplished more promptly and more easily than you imagined possible! If you have energy and time to focus right now, review your to do list immediately and identify the most urgent task to get done, write out the steps and what you need for the steps, and then try completing the first few steps…after getting those done, you probably will want to just keep going and get the whole task done!

And once you’ve seen how well this can work, be sure to take a moment to bask in the glory of your newly lowered psychological barrier to action!

The next step on the roadmap: Write Down Your Ideas