Overcoming Procrastination

Admit it. There´s something that you should be doing right now. And you´ve been "meaning to do it" for some time now, but just can´t seem to muster the motivation to sit down and do it. It´s called procrastinating, and this insidious tendency is all too common among Americans.

According to a study by University of Calgary professor Piers Steel, only 5 percent of us considered ourselves procrastinators in 1978, compared to 26 in 2007. Steel further concluded:

Men are more likely to procrastinate than women

Younger people are more likely to procrastinate than older people

Three out of four college students say they procrastinate

According to the study, "strong and consistent predictors of procrastination were task avoidance, task delay, self-efficacy, and impulsiveness, as well as conscientiousness and its facets of self-control, distractibility, organization, and achievement motivation."

In other words, this habit of putting things off is largely the result of too many distractions.

"At work, e-mail, the Internet and games are just a click away, making procrastination effortless," Steel said in a Fox News article.

"That stupid game Minesweeper -- that probably has cost billions of dollars for the whole society," he said.

What´s wrong with "putting off until tomorrow what could be done today"? According to Steel, "People who procrastinate tend to be less healthy, less wealthy and less happy."

Overcoming Procrastination for Good

Most everyone would agree that procrastination does not feel good in the long-run, because it simply drags out that nagging, dreading feeling you have about a certain project or task. Eventually, you will do it, so logically it makes sense to get it done as soon as possible. This will end your suffering and allow you to have some time to play without worries.

Of course, most of us don´t follow logic because we are controlled by our emotions. And in this case, the emotion that controls us is resistance.

"The main cause for procrastination is simply resistance to the project that is being put off," says Hale Dwoskin, CEO and Director of Training at Sedona Training Associates. "You resist a task, put it off and then still have it as an ongoing burden, which generates more of the feeling of resistance."

"If you allow yourself to let go of the resistance you will find yourself doing even long put off tasks with ease. Resistance is just a feeling and you can  just decide to drop it," Dwoskin says.

If you would like to learn how to let go of the resistance you feel about your most procrastinated projects, The Sedona Method is an excellent place to start. By answering just three simple questions, you can release resistance so that you can finally tackle your projects (and your underlying procrastination).

Ultimately, the more you release the more you will realize that you were putting more effort into procrastinating than it takes to actually complete even your most dreaded tasks.