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Say Goodbye to Procrastination……Today

Guest post by: Sylvia Lafair

Article Overview: "I'll get it to you later this afternoon" can send a sigh of relief through your body or a shudder of gloom. It all depends on who is making that statement. If you work with a procrastinator life can be full of stress and deep-seated anger. So, what can you do? First thought is to fire the slug! Slow is okay, tardy is often acceptable. However, promises that are made and never kept, well, that is another story.

Say Goodbye to Procrastination……Today

"I'll get it to you later this afternoon" can send a sigh of relief through your body or a shudder of gloom. It all depends on who is making that statement. If you work with a procrastinator life can be full of stress and deep-seated anger.

So, what can you do? First thought is to fire the slug! Slow is okay, tardy is often acceptable. However, promises that are made and never kept, well, that is another story.

Did you ever wonder why people procrastinate? Here's the skinny on tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Procrastinators are usually very bright people who were tagged as "less than" when they were growing up. Often, there was a super achiever brother or sister who was always in the limelight. Then the one who became a procrastinator was told they were not as good as James, or Jane or Jim or Julie.

Think about it for a moment. If you were constantly told your work was second level what would you do? I know I would take longer and liner to get my work out just so I would not have to hear it was not up to speed.

Yet, in the long run, all procrastination does is cause upset by bosses, teammates, and family members. So, to help a procrastinator the first thing to do is acknowledge that you have faith in their skills (unless you don't and if that is the case you really need to "un-hire" them).

Let's go with the thought that they can do good work, you just want it done on time. So, you acknowledge their skill base. That is a home run right there. Usually these are people who have gotten little recognition and self-doubt is their middle name.

Now once they have been acknowledged ASK THEM what kind of help they need to get the task done and give them a drop dead date and time, as in By Tuesday afternoon at 3PM. Be super specific, I mean super specific. Get it? You can't say whenever, cause whenever will never come.

Give these ideas a shot. I have seen procrastinators turn on a dime once they know you believe in them and will not sit by to watch them fall off the success cliff. They become loyal employees and your stress level will be in the safe zone.

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Article Tags: gloom, procrastinate, promises, sigh of relief, stress, work



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