How To Make The Habit of Replacing Procrastination With Creative Procrastination

As the year starts rolling and January hits its strides with the pandemic, we are increasing our focus on writing about ways to stay resolute on resolutions. In a previous post, we emphasized the role of repetition in replacing old bad habits with new good habits. The concept borrowed from author and motivational public speaker, Bryan Tracy, is illustrated by a framework that guides you through seven steps to building a good habit. The more you practice this framework the faster you become at adopting new good habits that replace old bad habits.

Among those bad habits is procrastination that becomes relevant to students in their early years of study, follows them through all their years of learning, and later can deeply affect their professional life. The earlier students deal with procrastination the better are the results throughout their life. According to Bryan Tracy, as outlined in his book “Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastination and Get More Done in Less Time”, procrastination is the by-product of poor performance. Among the most important reasons that people procrastinate in the workplace is having to do jobs that they have performed poorly in the past. They avoid doing the job altogether instead of getting instruction on how they should do it better, put a plan, and ask for help. On the other side, if they perform well in a job, they become more motivated to perform it without procrastination, each time they are asked to do it. Moreover, their determination to accomplish jobs increases. It is essential that you become able to identify your areas of strengths and weaknesses, work on them, develop your weaknesses into strengths, and put a plan that helps you tackle the top priority jobs first.

The fact that everyone has weaknesses – some weaknesses we can overcome some not- that he cannot overcome he has to procrastinate them by simply tackling more important ones first. Choose what you procrastinate on, including low-value activities as well as spending unproductive time since you must procrastinate anyway. Say “No” to anything your judgment tells you is not a priority. Once you become great at setting “priorities” you have to master “posteriorities” too. Bryan Tracy says, “A priority is something that you do more of and sooner, while a posteriority is something that you do less of and later, if at all”. When asked about his secret of success, Warren Buffett, the third richest man in the world replied, “Simple. I just say no to everything that is not absolutely vital to me at the moment.” So make it a habit to say no to anything you find is not a priority, make it posteriority, and replace it with what you find is a priority right away. This way you practice creative procrastination instead of procrastinating.