In short procrastination is a habit if you will, a very bad habit, that consists in putting off something for the next day. Procrastination is to blame for most of our productivity problems and yet it seems that very few people actually do something about it. And this doesn’t solely apply to your personal life either, it just as well happens in your career as well, because chances have it you’ll behave the same way at work as well. Missed opportunities, frenzied work hours, stress, overwhelm, resentment, and guilt are just a few consequences.

I’m pretty sure most of you’ve told yourselves at least once in your life I’ll do it tomorrow, I have the time or tomorrow’s another day. Ok, that’s true, but to paraphrase a common proverb, why put put for tomorrow, what you can do today? It’s safe to say that everybody knows that procrastination is hazardous, but what compels people, like you or myself, to do it? There’s a few reasons why people result to postponements like fear of the unknown, fear of change, perfectionism, fear of failure, disorganization and so on, but probably the most common reason is … laziness. That’s right folks laziness can really be a bugger, some go as far as saying it’s a terrible sickness, I personally think it’s all just a psychological issue.

The key to overcoming procrastination is inner strength, inner strength to motivate ourself on completing a task no matter how big or small it is. However most of us lack a particular strength in character and get sucked away from our goals and plans. Do not despair though there are ways to help pass procrastination and eventually get things done.

1. Take It One Step At a Time

Some tasks, at first glance, may seem simply overwhelming or require a Herculean amount of effort, so in term we don’t do anything, at all. It’s important not to let yourself discouraged by any particular amount of work or pressure involved in an activity; what you need to do is start off slow, in small baby steps, in a revere pyramid style and you’ll soon find that things are actually beginning to shape up. For example the other week, I went in with my dad in the garage to clean up the place. There were wrenches, old car oil stench, used car parts, an old refrigerator, a broken TV and a bunch of other useless crap lying all over the place. I didn’t even know where to start from and it all seem like it was gonna take for ever to clean up the mess. My dad soon approached me and told me “there’s no hurry son, there’s no pressure, we’ll just take it one step at a time and see where we get.” We started off with the floor, then with the stocked up drawers and went to more and more difficult task from there on, until around midnight we finally finished. My garage never looked cleaner. This is not only a methodical technique of getting things done, but also a provider or motivation.

2. You Don’t Need To “Have To,” You Need To “Want To”

If you feel like you “have to” do something you’ll automatically feel a sense of restrainment and negativity, that comes naturally when we’re feeling obliged to do something. This leads to some serious procrastination issues and is most encountered at work. The solution here is to shift your mindset from “have to” to “want to.”Be a firm believer that if you don’t want to do something, then you don’t have to. Simple as that. This might of course have some serious consequences, like loosing your job for instance (in the most extreme cases), but if manage to master the art of avoiding unwanted activities, you won’t have any trouble. There are some unpleasant tasks that we can’t avoid, like work for some (I never could understand why some people would choose to make their living in a field of activity they displease), but even then we can avoid procrastination by tricking our brain. You can do this by finding anything remotely pleasant about what you’re about to do, no matter how small and then think about it all the time, while you pursue the respective unpleasant task. This will cheat your brain into thinking you want to do it, not have to.

3. Brainstorm Your Way Out

A common reason for procrastination is lack of ideas, when dealing with any kind of tasks, that mildly requires some creativity. We’ve all had our days of mind blocks or plateaus, it’s actually fairly common, but if this period of blockage is too long, procrastination can settle in. What you need to do is brainstorm. Go outside have a walk and freshen up, observe and analyze everything you see or encounter. Always bring a ben/pencil or a PDA (for those of you more tech savvy) and start taking notes of what you see. Don’t criticize yourself, write down even the most preposterous ideas your mind might produce, you never know when something brilliant might come up.

4. Time Yourself

I’ve found that many people resort to procrastination because they have to much time on their hands and so they put off things for the next hour, day or even weeks. Go to your desk, grab an alarm timer and set it for 10 minutes, 30 minutes or whatever time you believe is necessary to complete your work. Be sure not to leave too much room though, in example this post in normal conditions might take me 2-3 hours to write, I’ve set my timer for 40 minutes. It’s still ticking. This will help you motivate yourself in completing your work, but also most importantly it will help you focus.

5. Eliminate All Other Distractions

This means no IM, TV, no e-mail, no internet whatsoever (unplugging your chord would be a good idea), no music (for those of you that find it distractive, I personally can work fine with music in my headphones) or anything remotely distractive, that might break your concentration. Anything that might come between you and whatever task your trying to fulfill may disrupt your current activities and thus lead to procrastination. It’s better to avoid this by eliminating anything that might cause you to suddenly abandon your work. However, be careful. Don’t over exaggerate with this and lock yourself from the outside world, from your family and people that care for you.

6. Stop Being A Perfectionist

Another cause of procrastination is perfectionism. It’s natural for us humans to try to be the best at something, but sometimes along the path we can tend to over-react with our ambitions and turn to perfectionism. This way we try complete a task flawlessly from the very beginning, but this takes a lot of work, that in term leads to a lot of stress, which in term leads to procrastination. This is because your brain will soon associate that stress with the respective task and will try to avoid it, most often by postponing it.

It’s important to understand that no one and nothing is perfect. It’s actually the imperfections that make the world around us so beautiful and most of all unique. You can try to write the most complete and helpful article ever or build the perfect software all you won’t, but you’ll never succeed, because there’ll always be room for improvement. Realize that an imperfect job completed today is always superior to the perfect job delayed indefinitely.

简言之，拖拉就是一种习惯，一种坏习惯，把事情推托到以后干是它的主要特征。大多数关于工作效率的问题基本上可以归咎于拖拉的毛病，但是很少人能够对这种毛病实际的做一些努力。 这个毛病并不会只是影响你的个人生活，同样会影响到你的事业，因为一旦有机会，这个毛病也会你在工作中表现出来。错过机遇，加班加点，压力，折磨，抱怨，内疚就是最终一连串的后果。

我相信大多数的人曾经在生活中不止一次的告诉自己：我明天再做它，我还有时间，或者是明天以后的某个时间。 OK，没错，但我要用一个谚语说明一下：为什么是明天，今天不行吗？（why put put for tomorrow, what you can do today?） 我可以打保票的说，每个人都知道拖拉不好，那究竟是什么让人们，就像你自己，去拖拉呢？有很多原因能导致人们去拖延事情，例如对未知事物的恐惧，害怕改变，完美主义，害怕失败，混乱无序等等，但恐怕最常见的原因却是 … 懒惰。确实如此，懒惰是个不好的毛病，有时候会发展成很严重的问题，我个人认为它完全是个心理上的问题。

克服拖拉毛病的关键是内在意志，用内在意志去激发自己完成一件事情，不管事情大还是小。 但我们大多数都在性格里缺乏这种意志，所以才导致我们离目标和计划越来越远。 不要沮丧，还是有方法能够帮助我们去克服拖拉、最终让我们完成我们的该做任务的。

1. 一点一点的做

有 些任务，乍一看，感觉是无法实现的，或是需要莫大的努力，于是就导致我们竟然就什么都没做。我们千万不要因为某些工作或压力而气馁，这很重要；我们处理它们的方法应该是逐渐启动，就像小孩学走路时最初的那一小步，采用一种倒金字塔的方法，你很快就能发现事情正在实际的开始有雏形了。 例如，有一个周末，我跟爸爸一起走进车库准备清扫这个地方。扳手，废油，用过的汽车零件到处都是，一个旧冰箱，一个破损的电视，还有一堆其它没用的废物。我真是不知道如何下手，看起来这是个永远不能完成的任务。爸爸很快走过来告诉我：“这里没有什么要紧的事情，没有什么要求，我们只需要每次做一点，然后看看我们都做完了什么。“我们从地板开始，然后是那些放东西的抽屉，然后其他越来越麻烦的事情，这样，直到午夜，我们终于完成了。 我们的车库前所未有的干净。这不仅是一种做事情的技术方法学，也是为人父母和激励人的方法学。

2. 没有“必须做”，只有“想要做”

如 果有什么事情是你感觉是“必须”要做的，那么你会不由自主的产生一种消极抵触的情绪，当你感到“被迫”要去做什么事情是自然会产生这种情绪。 这将会导致一些严重的拖拉问题，大部分发生在工作问题上。 解决这个问题的办法是将“必须做”的思想倾向转变成“想要做”。坚信如果你不想做什么事情，你就不必去做它。就这么简单。当然，这也许会导致一些严重的后果，例如立即丢了你的工作（在极端的情况下），但是如果你能掌握如何躲避不想做的事情的艺术时，这种情况就不会发生。有些不令人高兴的事情我们无法避免，例如替别人做事（我一直不明白为什么有些人要生活在他们不满意的行业中），对于这种事情我们可以用欺骗自己的技巧来避免拖拉。 你可以在你将要做的任务中寻找任何值得你高兴的方面，哪怕是一点点，然后你就一直想它，然后再去做那些不高兴的任务。这种方法可以骗过你的心智，让你觉得你想要去做它，而不是必须做。

3. 走出去想办法

导致拖拉的一个常见的原因是没有主意，特别是处理某些需要创造性想法的任务。 我们每人都有思路卡壳和畅通的时候，真是很常见，但是如果思路堵塞的时间太长，拖拉就会发生。 你现在需要做的是脑力激荡。 出去走走，清理一下思想，注意观察和分析你看到和碰到的任何事情。 拿着笔和本子或者一个PDA（这个需要你知道更多的技术知识），开始描述你看到的东西。 不要挑剔，写下甚至是最荒唐的主意，只要是你想到的，因为你永远不知道何时绝妙的想法会突然蹦出了。

4. 给自己定时

我 发现很多人拖拉的原因是因为他们有太多的时间，所以就可以把事情推托到下一小时，一天，甚至是一周。你应该走的办公桌前，拿起闹钟，设定在10分钟，30分钟或其他你觉得你应该能完成你工作的时间。要确保不能留太多的余地，例如这篇文章在通常的情况下应该会让我花费2-3小时完成，我就把闹钟设置成40分钟闹一次。 它现在仍然在走。这将帮助你激发自己去完成工作，更重要的事情是帮助你集中注意力。

5. 消除所有干扰

就是让你关掉聊天工具，电视，不要收email，断掉任何网络（最好拔掉网线），关掉音乐（这是针对那些视音乐为干扰的人，对我有个人，我戴着耳麦听音乐感觉良好）以及任何细小的干扰，任何能影响你注意力的事情。 任何能够插入你和你计划要完成的事情中间的事情都会中断你现有的活动，导致拖拉的产生。 所以我们最好通过消除任何可能导致你突然终止工作的干扰因素来避免这种情况的发生。 然而，注意。 不要过分与世隔绝、与你的家人和关心你的人隔绝了。

6. 停止完美主义

另 外一个导致拖拉的因素是完美主义。 努力把事情做到最好是人的天性，但是有时候沿着这条思路我们会产生反应过度的企图，变成了完美主义者。一开始我们就想着要把事情做的完美无缺，但这会需要很多的工作，最终导致很大的压力，于是就导致了拖拉。这是因为你的大脑很快就能把这些任务和这些压力联系到一些，于是产生抵触的意识，常见的做法就是推迟延期。

没有完 美的人和事物，认识到这一点很重要。 正是因为这不完美才让我们周围这个世界变的如此美丽，如此各具特色。你可能会试图写一篇最完全的最有价值的文章或编写一个最完美的软件，但你永远不会成功，因为什么事情都有可以再改进的空间。你要明白，今天完成的不完美的工作远优于无限期拖延的完美的工作。