Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.

Progress - Don't let yourself slip!

Hi,
I think some of us are making good progress towards reducing our procrastination. The things that have helped most for me so far are:

1. Avoiding time beinging.
2. Working on a task I don't like to do for just ten minutes then deciding if I want to continue.
3. Removing distractions, computer games, forums (except for this one!)
4. Timing myself when so I get a better sense of how long I'm spending on things (very much related to the first one!)

Perhaps what's helped the most has been to control my perfectionism. I'm still a perfectionist but now I try to stop myself from planning to do an unrealisticly perfect job. Once I start thinking that way you can almost guarentee I'll never get it done. ;)

I'm still having trouble getting to places on time though, it's still the "cut it down to the last second" problem. But of course something comes up and I end up being late.. }:-)

I'd like to know what's worked, or not worked for you, how are you guys doing now?

time binging! :0

Great way of putting it into words.

What's worked for me...

I agree with everything you've been working on also working for me Norske.

As you know, I'm actively working on my procrastination and chronic lateness difficulties this year, and I've been getting much better at being on time when other people were relying on me.

I recently spent a few weeks scheduling my days (Daily Plan) and evaluating the schedule. It was very useful to see what was working, what needed tweaking, and where the real sticking points were.

One of the most difficult areas turned out to be being on time for something ~for me~, e.g. supervision (I pay for the full hour whether I'm on time or I'm late), exercise classes, social events (rare - partly because I procrastinate on finding out what's happening and booking things).

I posted something about this on a couple of forums, and one person came back to me to say that she used to have the same problem. She finally got tired of how it made her feel. She, like me, didn't feel it was so much about being against the person being met (some people say it's a passive-aggressive thing - I'm sure it probably is sometimes), but that it might be more about self-punishment. I printed out the words she wrote and posted them on my computer: 'now I feel that I deserve to be on time'. Ever since I read that I've been on time for all my 'for-me' appointments. People are being pleasantly surprised (or sometimes unpleasantly, LOL!) when I turn up promptly!

Thanks for starting this thread Norske. I'd love to hear what is working for other people - sometimes just one small thing really opens my eyes, and makes it possible for me to progress with something I've been stuck with for years.

Normy

I'm time bingeing!

I've been making excellent progress still, but have really slipped today. Came here for inspiration, and realised I'm time bingeing again. I have to keep coming back to the same lessons over and over again!

Normy