Deadlines Are Your Friend

CREATE URGENCY No looming deadline? It’s better to create a sense of urgency on your own than to procrastinate and wait for it to be imposed externally. Here’s how:

• Use time as a tool. Instead of doing a task or activity for as long as it takes — decide upfront, before you start, how much time you’ll spend doing it. (I recently heard about a writer who charges his computer battery to 50%, goes to a cafe and leaves the charger at home when he needs to get some focused writing done.)
• Build momentum. It’s hard to feel urgency when you know you’re going to be doing something for several hours — start with shorter periods of 15 – 30 minutes.
• Set a challenge. Just like time limits make games fun, see how much you can get done in the allotted time. For example: “Let’s see how many emails I can answer in 15 minutes.” Or “How much of the proposal can I draft before my 10:30 meeting?”
• Create scarcity. As human beings, we want something more when there isn’t enough of it. Limit how long you can do an activity and you increase its perceived value. When I’m preparing for a piano competition, for example, I break down a three-hour practice session into 30-minute segments, one piece per segment. When the 30 minutes is up, I have to move onto the next piece, whether I feel ready or not. Not only does this keep me focused, it makes me eager to continue where I left off in the next session.