How To Avoid Procrastination
by Time Boxing
- A simple and effective solution to complex or boring work
Want to know how to avoid procrastination? Try time boxing. It’s a simple but effective time management technique that works when you want to get something done but it requires complex, boring or overwhelming work if you’re to achieve it.
What is it? Time boxing is a self determined time limit of work on anything you want to get done, but could easily put off. Pick any difficult project or task you want to complete. What’s the hardest part? Getting started. If you want to know how to overcome procrastination, time boxing will get you started and see it through to completion. How to use itChoose a ‘box’ of time that you can (a) afford, and (b) face working for, then set a timer and get on with it. How long for depends on the amount of resistance you feel. Can you work on it for 30 minutes? If not, make it less, maybe even much less. In our house we even have a ‘two minute tidy’! The length of time you choose has to be less than the resistance you feel to starting. When the time is up, stop. You now have two choices: come back to it later or keep going. Using the two minute tidy example, we invariably keep going. On the surface that seems like a good thing, and it is, if it doesn’t affect other things later.
More often than not, though, it does. It’s usually better to plan another time boxing session later on. This takes a degree of self discipline, but practice, and you’ll gradually estimate increasingly accurate time boxes.If you know what you want to do, but don't know how, or where, to start, try time boxing. It works on any task, project, goal or role, and the more you use it, the greater your gain. This technique is particularly effective when you use it on a time management chart.
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