Procrastination is something we’ve all been guilty of now and then. Overall, the hardest part of any new project is getting started.
Nearly every day, ordinary people and business owners alike come up with big and small ideas for projects they want to tackle. Sometimes they’re brimming with excitement, and other times nervous with concern. While some jump right in, many of us delay and postpone taking action indefinitely.
How then, can we get moving when stalled by a new project or daunting to-do list? Here are six ideas to help you get unstuck.
Ask yourself: What additional information do I need? When it’s hard to move forward, it’s often because we need more details to kick-start the project. Identify exactly what’s missing, then make a plan to gather the information you need. You’ll feel more confident and move forward with ease.
Details are better out than in: write them down. Get the details out of your head and onto paper. Without a written plan or other progress tracker, we can spend hours spinning our wheels trying to recall what we’ve done and what comes next. Spending time up front to write a detailed plan will save you time and effort.
When what comes next is at your fingertips, the need to procrastinate fades.
Only seek meaningful opinions. While it’s nice to have the support of family and friends, ask yourself: how much do they really know about the decision you’re trying to make?
When choosing a new software to help run your business, ask others who have made the same decision – and are successfully using what you’re considering. When it comes to redesigning the kitchen, trust a designer, not your cousin’s friend who’s “got a good eye”. Gathering lots of input from the wrong sources can be another form of procrastination. Trust your judgment, and be selective about whose advice you follow.
Focus on the essentials and let the rest go. Everyone doesn’t need to know everything. There are times we need to understand exactly how something works, inside and out. There are others when we only need to know enough to keep things moving forward.
Take setting up an email newsletter, for example. If setting up Mailchimp or Flodesk is not intuitive for you, and you’re wasting hours doing something you don’t love, get a little help and stop procrastinating. Let someone else do the initial set up. Once the design is to your liking, you can take it from there, editing and sending whenever you like. Win, win.
Piece by piece: the only way to complete a puzzle. Redesigning your website can seem like a huge task, but when you break it down, it becomes a series of very manageable, smaller tasks. You could start with the homepage and make a list of what you want to include – things like the company logo, social media icons, brief introduction, navigation menu. Page by page, you’ll have a beautiful site in no time.
This piece by piece approach is great for projects or tasks, big and small, as well as actual puzzles!
Leave perfectionism behind. It’s better to get started and improve things along the way, rather than wait for every detail to be perfect. There’s much to gain from learning as you go and making steady improvements over time. Businesses are constantly evolving – if you let go of perfectionism, you’ll find it easier to stay adaptable and avoid procrastination when challenges arise.
Apply these six simple tips and put procrastination away forever!