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.

Daily Check-ins

This forum is for check-ins or "book-ending" - a very effective strategy where you post a message committing to doing something for a specified length of time, then at the end of that length of time, come back and post a message reporting on what you did.

How to use the daily check-in board

14 October, 2006 - 10:13am - anonymous (not verified)

Here's how we organize the check-ins in this forum.

Every day someone (whoever gets to the forum first) starts a thread for the day. The first message is just a general welcome for everybody - not a personal check-in. Lots of times people like to use graphics to make the opening message welcoming. If you don't want to do that, that's fine.

Make the subject of the thread starter the full date - day of week, month, day, and year.

How and why check-ins work...

8 December, 2005 - 2:51pm - anonymous (not verified)

Checking in (or "book-ending") means doing this:

Post a message committing to do a specific task during a specified period of time.

At the end of that period of time, post a message reporting on what you did.

This sounds simple-minded, but it's a surprisingly effective tool. It works for several reasons:

It makes you accountable.

It provides social support. People can cheer you on when you succeed, or encourage you try again when you don't. Plus it ameliorates the sense of loneliness and isolation that people can feel doing certain tasks, making them easier to do.