Procrastination is an affliction that can get the best of us. Even the most successful people in life are prone to procrastinate at one point or another.

Many people wind up wasting more time putting things off (or complaining about them) than actually doing them. As a result, at the 11th hour, they are madly rushing around or panicking that things are not done, and cursing themselves for having procrastinated yet again.

It has been “guestimated” that we spend an average of at least 1 hour a day procrastinating. Which can be significant when you think of the number of people who wish for a few extra hours each day. By “just doing it” we can win back one hour a day.

Experts have found that 90% of people rank procrastination among the top three things they would like to change about themselves. That isn’t surprising when you consider that no matter what it is that people procrastinate about, whether it is getting a project done at work, paying bills or cleaning the house – it nags at us and raises our stress levels.

So if you want to beat procrastination here are some handy hints to help you along.

1. Commit to doing first things first. The reason we procrastinate is simply because we can get away with it. We tend to mistake being busy with being productive so we put off the difficult tasks with the simple and ineffective tasks. So why not write up each morning before you begin your day the five most pressing tasks from the most important to the least. Then commit to completing the first task before you move onto the next and therefore completing the most important task first.
2. Learn to delegate. Often times we procrastinate simply because we either don’t know enough to complete the task or we just simply have no interest in doing it. So a simple way to get around this is to delegate the task to somebody who is skilled in it. Maybe is the mowing you are putting of or a business task that you can just delegate to someone who specializes in that area so that you can go on to do something that you are interested in instead.
3. Become passionate in what you do. Sometimes we know we should be doing it but we just don’t have the motivation to get it started or to get it completed. Often this is due simply to not being passionate enough about the end goal. To overcome this spend sometime visualizing the task finished or the end result and thereby giving you the added motivation and drive to do the things necessary to complete the end goal.