Procrastination Is The Key To Success?

No, that’s not a typo.  Procrastination is actually vital to your success. In fact, some of the most successful people in the world are the biggest procrastinators.  How’s that possible?  Simple, they have learned how to procrastinate.

Confused?

Allow me to elaborate.  It is normal for people to procrastinate; the difference is in the way losers and winners procrastinate.  For starters, the biggest reason why people procrastinate is due to fear. Whether it’s fear of failure, the task seems too difficult or there’s a lack of knowledge, however you look at it, fear drives procrastination.

The losers’ way of procrastination is to do the easy, trivial tasks first and procrastinate the more difficult and time-consuming, critical, tasks.  Where the winners do the exact opposite, they complete the difficult tasks first and procrastinate the easier tasks.

Why does this make a difference?

It goes back to the 80/20 principle.  Our days are composed of 80% trivial and 20% critical tasks.  The 20% critical tasks account for 80% of our results, whereas the 80% trivial tasks only account for 20% of our results.  Those few critical 20% are 10-20 times more productive than the countless trivial.

Robert G Allen said it best when he stated even our days have critical and trivial times.  Think about it, what are the hours of the day where you are at your peak? And conversely, what are your down hours? Knowing your critical and trivial hours is crucial in understanding procrastination.

The best part about understanding procrastination is there are six steps, if done daily, that will allow you to master procrastination and explode your productivity:

1. Spend 20 minutes a everyday reflecting on what needs to be done (works best in the morning or before going to bed)
2.  Ask yourself with each task “is this a 20 or a 80?”         
3.  Write at least 3 critical tasks that have to be completed
4.  Add all trivial tasks underneath the critical 3
5.  Use FTF (Feared Thing First) when doing your tasks
6.   Do critical tasks during critical hours (your peak hours)

Rather than trying to avoid procrastination, save yourself the stress and use these methods that teaches you how to procrastinate. 

Edith Monfort - Online Marketing & Business Coach