Actions to avoid procrastination.
Have you heard that funny old question “How do you eat an elephant?” or “How does the elephant enter the car?” ; the familiar answer “One bite at a time!” or “By taking one step inside the car first” he....he…..he…... jokes apart, you all would agree with me that your mind, your ability to think, your plans, and your decision, is your most powerful tool for overcoming procrastination and increasing productivity at the workplace. Research says that; the very act of thinking and planning unlocks your mental powers, triggers your creativity, and increases your mental and physical energies and converts it in a positive momentum which leads to a healthy working environment.
The good news is that every minute spent in planning saves as many as ten minutes in execution. It takes only about 10 to 12 minutes for you to plan your day, but this small investment of time can save you up to two hours (100 to 120 minutes) in wasted time and diffused effort through the day. You may have heard of the Six-P Formula by one of the greatest Business Accelerators Charles Alvarez. He postulates; “Proper prior planning prevents poor performance.” It is all about helping to develop the planning skills of employees and the management at the workplace. It is nothing but organizing your tasks by prioritizing. You must have heard the phrase “Eat that frog first” means “Do the Worst First”- tackling your important tasks first which you are likely to procrastinate. The first thing to do in the morning is to set out your plan of action and prioritize those actions.
There are consequences that may come to the surface if the tasks are not done in time. To avoid the problems of procrastination this writer has designed a time management model called “HAPPY TIME”.
„H Takes the highest priority followed by the other alphabets A, P, P, and Y in order of priority with Y being the lowest priority task. Start by asking yourself how to make a list the night before or first thing in the morning. Never start work without a list of tasks on the paper. No...No…No... to our verbal -commitments to ourselves. Once your list is ready neatly written on a piece of paper categorize them as per the HAPPY TIME framework.
H is the category of tasks that covers “Very Important Tasks” These are tasks carrying consequences even financially. A failure to do this may result in these may result in major losses of all kinds.
A category is the “You Should Do It” part, like checking messages, e-mails, replying to the urgent ones and none of these tasks you can afford to ignore. Never start a task under the A category if you have not finished those under H.
P Category includes “Nice To do It” like calling friends, relatives for chatting, call coworkers for coffee or breakfast and gossip sessions or talk about that day‟s rumors. This is that the category that will not affect your work at all whether you complete these tasks or not. There people who s spend as much as 50% of their time on this category which does not have any relevance on your productivity at work.
P category is that level of tasks which could be described as “You Can Delegate It To Someone Else” so that you can be free to attend to „H‟ level tasks. The thumb rule is to delegate most of the tasks from this category so that you can focus on „H‟ and the higher level P tasks.
Y Category tasks that “You Can Eliminate Altogether” and it won‟t make difference for you at all in current circumstances. We also can call it inconsequential tasks. This may be an important one day but not today. „Y‟ tasks are those tasks that will not make any difference whatsoever to you. Every minute you spend on „Y‟ category tasks is the time taken out from the all-important „H‟ category that you must attend to at any cost.
If you happen to have a large list of 'H' tasks then you may wish to further sub categorize them into H1, H2, H3, H4, and……so on depending on priority base. The The following Table captures the essence of the task prioritization under the Happy Time Model:
Priority Preference From Highest to Lowest H A P P Y Task
H:- “Very Important Tasks”,
A:-“You Should Do It Tasks”
P:- “Nice To Do It Tasks”
P:- “You Can Delegate These Tasks Someone Else”
Y:- “You Can Eliminate Altogether Tasks”
To conclude one major reason for procrastination at work is either lack of motivation or lack of proper planning. It will inevitably lead to confusion and frustration at the workplace. Sometimes confusion can arise from what is expected and what we are trying to do. Consequently, it is important to understand the objectives of the tasks clearly. . . Try to bring an element of clarity to the tasks before you start. This will happen only when you write it down…write it down…. and …… write it down…….
To have clarity, to make a plan on the paper with “HAPPY TIME” Model and procrastination will be your past thing at the workplace. With proper clarity of the tasks by implementing the HAPPY TIME Model procrastination will be a thing of the past. Try it out. You may even enjoy doing it. Good luck.
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