Procrastination & procrastination in time management: it turns out differently ...

Why reach many People your Set not by strenuous efforts? Often distractions and disruptive factors are to blame that we postpone something - or our own inner attitude. How can you change that?

What does Aufschieberitis look like?

Let's start with an example: Mr G. wants his time in Future plan carefully and stick to this plan. But soon he realizes that despite being most accurate Planning things are not going the way he imagined. “In theory it all sounds fine nice, but in practice it's different, because I have to react flexibly and the whole planning process is just too unspontaneous for that," he says, glossing over his frustration and using this excuse to push the topic of time management aside for the time being.

But it doesn't have to come to that. Of course, especially in professional life, external factors are often to blame for the fact that you don't achieve everything you set out to do: difficult ones customers, a broken computer, insolvent employers or a car breakdown. Unfortunately, you have no influence on this. But it always depends on how you deal with such difficulties. And some factors that prevent your successful self-management are simply homemade. If you Problems If you have the ability to actually implement your plan in concrete terms, you should work on it.

Overcome your "weaker self"

By reading literature on the topic of time management, you are taking the first step towards optimal self-management - but only the first step. Now you need your Background also implement it concretely. And to do that, you need the change really want to, because if this is not the case, you will not implement your planning consistently enough in the often stressful everyday work. Be patient with yourself, though: you can't change all of your habits at once.

If you want too much all at once, you will fail and then likely give up in frustration too quickly. In order to prevent such a thing, you should first of all clear do where you have the “inside Schweinehund” shows you at the optimum Implementation hinders your planning. First of all, consider when you use similar excuses as Mr G. in the example above. Then analyze the motives behind these excuses.

Causes of procrastination - an overview

If you know what the root cause is, you can usually take action right away. The following overview should help you:

Write down your plan carefully

If you are still unsure whether you will implement your plan consistently, use an unusual tool: Write down exactly how you imagine your personal self-management program to be implemented over the next four weeks. Schedule as precisely as possible when you want to have achieved which target. Don't take on too much. When writing them down, make your personal goals clear again, visualize where your strengths and weaknesses lying and which ones Methods and tools you want to use.

You can now find someone else—such as a partner or friend—to use this plan to check that you have kept the resolutions. You can also agree on smaller penalties and rewards. Perhaps this external pressure will motivate you to stay on the ball. But maybe it's enough if you just team up with someone who also wants to improve their work organization and you motivate each other from now on. You can also use your specifications as a contract with yourself forms: Make clear agreements and put the date and signature under them. However, you should also agree on smaller sanctions if you breach the contract.

Do you sometimes say "No!"

You should leave 40 percent of your schedule free for unforeseen events. However, this 40 percent free time may not be enough. This can happen because you don't manage to refuse other people's requests and wishes. There can be very emotional motives behind this in daily dealings with other people, for example. the Anxietyto offend someone with a rejection, a desire to please, or a need to help others. The tips below show you what to do in such a situation.

The sound makes the music – especially with the “No"-Say. When she is pressed or overwhelmed feel, many people tend to say “no!” in an exaggeratedly violent and unfriendly manner. accept. Always be polite and pack your “no!” skillfully, as shown in the examples below.

Self-employed people in particular are confronted with a particular problem: they have to Money to earn and therefore accept as many orders as possible. At the same time, you want to establish yourself on the market and offer every customer the best possible service, which, however, is usually not additional to them at first Income contributes (even if good service improves in the long term through customer loyalty and word of mouth for sure pays off). However, you are doing yourself a disservice by trying to take all orders and fulfill all your customers' requests; soon you won't be able to do anything thoroughly and reliably, miss appointments and ultimately have to cancel because you simply don't have any Choice have. However, your customers will then be less satisfied than if you had refused straight away, because the customers also have specifications and plans which they want to comply with and which, thanks to you, may no longer be able to do so. She verlieren and the Trust in yours Company and you will soon be seen as someone who does everything a little bit indecisively, but does nothing right. It is better there, focus on his Objective (see above) and resolutely “No!” at the right moment. accept.

Typical problems with saying “no”

The following examples show situations that typically occur with the self-employed. The tips explain how you can solve the respective dilemma.

A clear, as narrowly composed performance professional as possible helps you to say “no”. It makes it clear to other people right from the start which services you specialize in and which services you do not offer. If someone asks: “Do also…” you can say “no” with a clear conscience. In this case, the “no” even creates trust because others know exactly what you can expect and where you stand with you.

Do not get bogged down

Maybe you know that: You just wanted to fast write some bills, im Internet according to the latest news from your Industry search or install a new program on the computer. You do this and that - and suddenly, without you noticing it, the day is over and you haven't even done your actual work. Instead, you got bogged down with lots of little things and don't even know where your time has gone.

However, once you have analyzed what activities you used to spend your time on, as described above, you can understand where your time has gone: look back at your list and don't just focus on how much time you spend useful worked effectively or relaxed during breaks, but also how much time you wasted unnecessarily. You can now take methodical action against this loss of time.

Do you need to do this work this way now?

First, question the purpose of your time-consuming activities. The following diagram shows you once again how to proceed systematically. After an in-depth analysis, some activities turn out to be necessary, but have to be organized differently (step 2 shows you how). However, you can relieve yourself of many other tasks. First of all, this includes routine tasks that you only do out of habit, precisely because you have always done it that way.

For example: Ms. K. is the owner of a gift shop. In the run-up to Christmas it is very busy. Despite the stress, she writes Christmas cards to all of the customers in your file every year. Some customers haven't bought anything from her for years, here the Christmas cards are simply a wasted effort and an unnecessary cost factor. Mrs. K. would do well to sort out the old customers.

Find a better time

But even if work should be necessary - it certainly makes sense, for example, to send good customers a Christmas greeting - the question remains whether you really have to do this work yourself. In many cases you could simple Tasks let someone else do it cheaply, efficiently and quickly (you will learn more about this in the next chapter). Ms. K. could, for example, delegate these small tasks to a student. But you could also ask yourself whether you absolutely have to do this work now in the run-up to Christmas. In the summer, during the holiday season, she often has nothing to do for days and is bored in her shop.

The holiday season would be a much better time to start writing those Christmas cards. And you certainly have one or the other idle phase in which you can do such work in between. Your personal analysis will show you where these lie. Now plan these rather unimportant tasks specifically in such phases. In addition, to save time, you should also analyze whether you can complete the tasks on efficient way to do. Check whether you are not working in a cumbersome way out of sheer habit and how you can simplify this way of working and thus make it more efficient without affecting the result: Use technical aids such as suitable software or a better computer or automate work processes, for example because you use it frequently on your computer Features directly (in Office applications, for example, this works with macros). In our example, Mrs. K. writes all Christmas greetings from Hand and then folds the homemade cards himself. It would save you a lot of time if you bought pre-folded paper beforehand and then printed out the greetings on the computer. Then you would only have to write the greeting once instead of over and over again, you wouldn't have to be afraid of spelling mistakes and at the end you would only have to sign and put the cards in the envelope. Only if, at the end of your analysis, you find that you really have to do the work yourself and absolutely must do it now and in this way, should you do so.

Organize work

Most sensible to organize Smaller jobs and routine activities if you combine them into blocks. The idea behind this is: For every job you start, you need Preparation and a start-up time: For example, you have to find documents and put them in order, read them in, think about the topic, start up the computer and much more.

Example: Ms M. starts the working day with a customer call. She first looks for the project documents, then the address of the customer and prepares the arguments with which she wants to convince. After Conversation she packs all the documents away again, writes invoices on the PC and prints them out. To do this, she has to turn on the corresponding devices and then turn them off again. In the afternoon you have another customer meeting on the same topic as in the morning. Again she pulls out project and address documents. In the evening she finally writes an offer, again on the PC.

If Ms. M. had combined the phone calls and the work on the PC into one block, she would have gained an estimated half an hour of time that she lost when looking for the documents twice and when starting up and shutting down your computer. So always group such smaller tasks together in blocks and save unnecessary start-up times with this “series production”. You then only need to prepare each activity once and can then carry it out routinely. To do this, analyze again what activities you usually fill your day with. Now think carefully about which operations can be grouped into blocks and when it is best to carry them out during the day. Pay attention to your performance curves (more on this in the corresponding chapter in the planning section.

Example: For Ms. M. the result of your analysis looks like this: In the morning a block of conceptual project work on the PC. Then at lunchtime before dinner, small tasks on the PC. Then the computer is turned off. After the meal and a rest phase, the customer talks block follows in the afternoon.

Work in blocks

It almost goes without saying that you have to finish each of the smaller jobs before starting something new. Because if you routinely plan the tasks in blocks, you won't even think about starting something else besides working on the PC. But even if for some reason you can't strictly adhere to the blocks, you should at least make sure that you can complete individual smaller tasks that are done quickly before starting something new. If you don't do this, you will always have in the back of your mind that something is still unfinished and that is mentally hindering your further work. The situation is different, of course, with larger projects, which you usually cannot work through in one go, but you have to interrupt with smaller tasks.

For smaller tasks in between: First finish one thing, then start another. For larger project tasks: organize them sensibly and alternate with smaller routine activities to relax.

What you can get today ...

Not all work is pleasant and you just like to put off unpleasant things. Taking up complaints, tax returns and project discussions are typical examples of tasks that many prefer to do later than now. It is completely normal to act according to the pleasure principle in this way. And deceive yourself:

Read the newspaper first, then that eMails, then the team meeting in the coffee kitchen - everything is more important than the actual work, which was actually at the top of the priority list. Therefore, analyze why you are so reluctant to do this important task before you come up with a seven-point plan procrastination get to grips. Your analysis might look like this.

Checklist: I do not really feel like doing this job because:

• I just don't understand the purpose of this work. Actually, I have a completely different idea than my boss, but I can't argue with him.
• I'm missing some background information, to be honest. If I had that, I would perhaps understand better why the boss wants it that way and not otherwise.
• the closing date is still too far away, or it has not yet been established when I should have completed the assignment.
• this work is stupid and boring, not fun and therefore just annoys me. Actually, I'd rather do something completely different.
• ...

7-point plan against "procrastination":

• You can take care of unpleasant activities immediately. What's gone is gone, and once you've completed the task, you can be much more liberated with more enjoyable things to do.
• Have everything you need to get the unpleasant work done - office supplies, paper, computers. Then you've already done something. Then don't do anything. At some point you have enough of doing nothing and just start.
• Set yourself an appointment by when you want the work to be done - you don't have to, because you alone decide!
• You don't understand why you have to do the task or you don't know the background. Ask your boss or client, get information.
• Make yourself aware of what you will lose by postponing: a customer, an important project, the trust of your boss - if you don't keep the deadline - or just being quiet because you are always secretly thinking about the unfinished business.
• Having trouble getting started? Break down large, seemingly unmanageable tasks into smaller sections - and suddenly it all works by itself.
• After the work is done, promise yourself a reward - this will motivate yourself. It can be something material, something nice that you want to buy, but also a nice evening with friends or family.

If you are a perfectionist, you have a hard time: Because you want to do every little task perfectly, you are particularly at risk of getting bogged down. Precisely because you want to do everything perfectly, you often see even smaller tasks as an insurmountable mountain in front of you, which you then push ahead of you instead of just starting. And because you are suspicious that other people don't do something so perfectly, you prefer not to delegate tasks to others. Your perfectionism can be caused by deeper-seated fears. Not only does good planning help, but you should also be specific Stress reduce and reduce possible fears. Professional help can also be useful here.

How to deal with errors

Organize a break-free time in which you can concentrate on your work, preferably in the morning. Don't read any during this time eMails and forward calls to your answering machine or to someone else. Make it clear that you need this time - including yourself. Enter this time in your schedule as busy. Let the others know - and also let them know when you can be reached easily.

You have already learned above how important it is to analyze your daily routine for at least a week and also to record how often and for how long you are disturbed in your work. You should now turn to this analysis and especially to the Faults column. Take a closer look here again:

• When and how often were you disturbed during the week?
• How long did these disturbances last?
• Why and by whom were you bothered? Was the reason important or urgent?
• What bothered you (phone, eMail, Visit)?

Attention habituation effect

Of course it's nice that you Executive Appreciate your achievements and often want something from you: This makes you feel needed. However, if you're always "available," that can change negative effect: The customers get used to it and may even get the impression that they would otherwise not have any orders.

Not all disturbances can be avoided, but many. First, consider whether some faults always occur in the same way, by the same person, for the same reason or at the same time and group them together in blocks. This means that you can treat these fault blocks like a fault. Then think about whether the disruption is really inevitable.

Do you really have to do that yourself?

Example: Antiques dealer G. analyzes his disruptive factors. In addition to many smaller disruptions, a larger block is emerging: Every day, usually in the late afternoon, sometimes twice a day, the same annoying customer calls, asks if he can get this or that, constantly has new absurd things ideas to their set-up and always says “I have to think about it” at the end so that they can come up with a new idea the next day. This not only costs Mr G. the time of the phone call, it also gets him upset every time. Through targeted conversations, Mr. G. realizes that the customer is primarily interested in Asian antiques, which he does not carry. He therefore gives the customer a few appropriate addresses. If you don't find anything there, he offers, the customer can visit him personally at a fixed appointment, since such ideas are difficult to explain on the phone if she actually has concrete intentions to buy. With this service, the customer satisfied.

Seriously ask yourself whether you need to address this matter personally in this way now. If you decide that someone else can take care of it better, delegate the concern. If you find that you could better deal with a matter at a later time, set an appropriate appointment: For example, if you are disturbed by an unannounced customer, refer to your busy schedule who made an appointment (even if at all not true) and ask the other person to make an appointment as well. If you can get things done quickly, it's a good idea to put them in between - then you don't have to think about that anymore. And if you come to the conclusion that this matter doesn't need to be taken care of, then you should just say "no".

Avoid interference - 5 tips

In fact, you can avoid or at least limit a lot of disturbances by whoever you are by conducting the appropriate conversations in a targeted manner and thus filtering out the important information more quickly and efficiently. It does not matter whether you are conducting a personal or telephone conversation, whether you Meeting hold or under four Eyes speaking to someone and whether your interlocutors are customers or employees, the basic rules are always the same:

1. First, make the goal of the conversation clear: What do you want to achieve? Give information, get information, make an appointment, make an offer? Write down all the important talking points. When you know what you want, you will be able to make more targeted calls.
2. Before the interview, find all important documents together. It does not make a competent impression if you have to look for them during the conversation.
3. Determine the duration of the conversation exactly. In the case of longer discussions, plan how long the individual topic blocks should be dealt with.
4. Tell them right at the beginning what it is about and how long you have estimated for the conversation and the individual units - then the other person knows what they can expect. For meetings with several participants, define a rule, for example: “30 seconds per speech” or “Illustrate all contributions with examples”.
5. Record the result of the conversation in writing, even if it is just bullet points. Think about whether the conversation served its purpose. Implement what you learned from the conversation - if not immediately, plan the implementation consistently.