Design your own Anti-Procrastination Plan

UT Learning Center at the Unversity of Texas has released a design plan for overcoming anti-procrastination. The plan has first steps – schedule your tasks for your project, take action, use your friends, and keep a journal – and take action is probably the most important step within the plan:

_____ When it comes time to do your task and you are tempted to procrastinate, make yourself sit down for 5 minutes and think about what you are about to do. Envision the emotional and physical consequences of procrastinating — and of following through on your plan to work. After you think this over, go ahead and do what you judge best … with no apologies or second thoughts!

_____ Imagine how you would behave in the next hour or day if you were NOT a procrastinator. Get a clear picture in your mind — and then act out that role, pretend, for the next hour or day, that you are not a procrastinator. When you are done, evaluate your “acting”: did you do a good job? How did it feel?

_____ When you feel an impulse to work on your project, follow up on it: do it at the moment you think of it and keep at it until you don’t feel like it anymore.

_____ Decide on a specific reward for success — and/or a punishment for failure — at working on your task. Make it realistic and follow through. For example, you might decide that you won’t take a bath on a day when you don’t work on your paper.

Design your own Anti-Procrastination Plan – [UT Learning Center]