How Often Do You Find Yourself Procrastinating?
Think how much easier life would be if you could decide to do things immediately. Sometimes we procrastinate because we’re afraid of doing something, and sometimes it’s because we’re just plain lazy. If either of these sound familiar, Thinking & Doing is an easy exercise that you can start today. It is simple and you can use it for the rest of your life when it’s time to “get things done.”
How To Stop Procrastinating
The Thinking & Doing exercise involves making rapid decisions on the most trivial of issues. Each day you need to practice making these rapid decisions about things that are only slightly outside your comfort zone.
Quick Tip
“Whenever a minor thought comes into your head that requires an action, you decide to complete that action immediately, wherever practical.”
Getting Started
That’s right, Thinking & Doing is as simple as just doing it. The tasks you perform should be as simple as possible.
Here are a few examples:
- Taking out the garbage
- Making the bed,
- Picking up a piece of clothing that’s lying on the floor,
- Paying one bill,
- Making the difficult phone call
- Walking the dog.
Setting Yourself Up For Success
There are four things to remember when doing these tasks:
- Do the task immediately
- Do the task as quickly as possible
- Don’t stop until you have finished
- Try to think as little as possible.
Completing the task as soon as possible is very important. The sooner you do it, the greater the reward. The faster you do it, the stronger you make the new habit.
How to Practice Thinking & Doing
Decide to do at least 10 trivial tasks a day. The more trivial tasks you do, the sooner you will notice that it is getting easier to make decisions about the more difficult tasks.
If you practice this simple Thinking & Doing exercise for three weeks, you will notice a remarkable change. Your feelings of discomfort about decision-making will begin to subside. Rather than seeing the task as uncomfortable, you will begin to perceive it as challenging, stimulating, and, on occasion, exhilarating. You will also begin to get a stronger feeling of being in control.
Related reading on Quora:
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