So you procrastinate.  So you may never stop procrastinating.  

You’ve heard it all before.  You understand and/or don’t particularly care why you do it.

Here are some strategies to help you cope with procrastination.

If you’re constantly missing important deadlines, failing to complete necessary tasks, or simply spending too much time on menial tasks like checking email (what feels like a hundred times a day), you may be a procrastinator. People tend to procrastinate for three basic reasons – they enjoy the thrill of beating looming deadlines, they want to avoid completing boring or unfulfilling tasks, or they can’t decide which tasks to complete first, so they choose to do nothing instead.

Understanding why you put off getting your work done is the first step to coping this problem. Once you accept that you procrastinate to the point where it’s affecting your business, it’s time to figure out strategies to override this behavior.  In most cases, telling yourself to manage your time better, or to stop wasting time checking your Facebook page every hour isn’t going to solve the problem (or help you complete important tasks on time).

Identify Business / Life Goals

One way to fight the urge to put off work and surf the Internet instead is to create a daily to-do list. Hopefully, some of these tasks will be enjoyable, but, realistically, most probably won’t so you need to accept – at least so some degree, that some tasks will be boring, unfulfilling and maybe even downright annoying. But once you realize the necessity of these tasks and how they impact your business and your life, these tasks will hopefully become a bit more interesting.

Create a list of business or personal goals that correspond to the tasks on your to-do list. This can sometimes give you the momentum needed to stop procrastinating quite so often.

The Role of A Virtual Assistant

A virtual assistant (“VA”) can take over those tasks you keep putting off to ensure they’re completed on time. Relying on a good virtual assistant allows you to work on more favorable tasks and gives you more free time to pursue hobbies and interests, or business opportunities for that matter.

And while a VA can’t stop your tendency to procrastinate, an effective virtual assistant can keep you on the right path by completing tasks on time, tackling those boring tasks you loath, or by making task-related decisions quickly. Delegating tasks to a VA does require a minimal level of involvement on your part, however it comes with all the rewards of meeting or exceeding business and life goals too.

Overcoming Procrastination

Procrastination is learned behavior. If you can pair business / life goals along with the tasks you need to complete to meet these goals, you’ll quickly begin to see the long-term rewards of getting stuff done on time. You don’t need to tackle this problem alone, however. A virtual assistant may be just what you need to ease the stress and frustration caused by tight deadlines, or by the thought of having to work on endless, boring tasks.

You may never completely overcome your tendency to procrastinate, but finding a way to compensate for this behavior by hiring a VA is one way to ensure procrastination won’t hinder your ability to truly succeed!

Additional Resources:
Tiffany Michelle & Co. helps entrepreneurs, consultants and small business owners gain time, improve productivity and efficiency, and increase profits by providing comprehensive administrative support which allows them to focus on the business-building and profit-generating activities instead of all the other administrative stuff.