What is Procrastination? Why do we procrastinate? What causes us to procrastinate? Can we prevent procrastination? Questions like these must be addressed to make ourselves more aware of this cunning time thief that affects almost everyone to some degree or another.

If we captured this bad habit and identified when it strikes we could double our productivity and increase our efficiency with our daily actions toward achieving our goals.

To procrastinate is to delay effort or action for a variety of reasons although generally through a lack of enthusiasm or laziness brought about by an ill conditioned state of mind. It is to put off until a later time, delay action or defer until it can be forgotten.

A procrastinator is a person that finds it hard to get started with a specific task or someone that takes as long to prepare to do a task as it does to actually do the task when if they were to just get on with it. They use every imaginable excuse to avoid actually doing the task.

Procrastination can be avoided by using habit to get started in the first place, plan a sequence of stages to motivate your action and reduce the amount of time it takes to begin. Generally, procrastination usually occurs before a task so getting started quickly is the best way to prevent it, just get stuck in and get on with it and before you know it you will have completed it.

One thing to bear in mind is that it effects everybody from time to time so don’t go beating yourself up with negative self talk thinking that it only effects you, it’s a natural reaction to having to do a task that you have not prepared your mind to do.

One useful idea is to have your motivation list close by so it’s easy to read daily. If you find yourself procrastinating you must gather the thoughts and emotions that fire up your engines and ignite that productive energy that drives your passion for success.