How can you use procrastination to get things done? Simple. When you’re “waisting time” or procrastinating with seemingly unimportant tasks, you can get in the driver’s seat. In other words, it doesn’t have to be a hap hazard situation. I noticed that in college, when I had a big paper due, I suddenly found myself doing housework (that up-till-this-point, I was avoiding. Suddenly, for some reason, these house chores didn’t seem like work, I wanted to do them. I was really engaged with what I was doing. Notice, this happens all the time in your life. With a great, ominous task on your mind, you become engaged in other productive or creative projects less stressful then the major task.
When you experience strong emotion (like anxiety) you exert energy. When you find yourself engaging in these other tasks you are sublimating your nervous energy into something positive. Here’s how to take control of the process:
* Become aware when you are doing it. Be conscious that you are procrastinating, then you can take control and turn it into sublimating. Then, use this awareness to “bookmark” the major task and plan to get back to it when you are more ready.
* Using your realization that you’re procrastinating – You don’t immediately recall an important thing that you have to do but you find yourself working on a bunch of less important things. When you feel like you might be waisting time, take a look at everything on your list of things that needs to be done and re-discover what it is you are avoiding.
*Pick good, important tasks to funnel your energies into (clean your house, work on your masterpiece, exercise, etc.). If there is something that you can engage in that will be productive, creative or in general make your life better, work on that task, giving yourself permission to put off the daunting task to a later time.
* You have “bookmarked” the major task with the aim of returning to it later or tomorrow. Once you’re to that point of “later”, then think of another daunting task that you don’t want to do and work on previous daunting task instead. Your energy will go right into that task that you previously didn’t want to do.
More to come, please keep checking my blog for new posts!
psychotherapistnyc 