Do you procrastinate on deadlines?
Do you leave things until the last possible minute causing lots of stress?
If so, this week’s Level: Up work hack is for you!
How to Play to Your Strengths and Dominate Deadlines
If you are someone who always leaves things until the last possible minute to get done, why not accept it is who you are and make it your superpower?
Let’s imagine you’ve got a pressing task that is due at 5 pm on Friday.
You have lots of good intentions of getting it done well in advance but history tells you that isn’t going to happen. You know yourself. It isn’t going to get done in advance. Too many other things will take priority.
What happens?
You have great intentions of doing it in advance but the task will stay on your to-do list all week and add to the stress, even if it’s low-level subliminal stress.
So what can you do instead?
In the case of our Friday at 5 pm example above, let’s hypothetically pretend that this particular task will take you an hour.
Instead of saying to yourself that you will get it done days before the deadline, why not play to your natural strength and plan it in for JUST BEFORE the deadline.
So pop it in your diary for 4 pm on Friday.
Rather than spend all week putting it on your to-do list and rolling it over every day feeling like a failure, schedule it for as close to the deadline as possible and give it a try.
That way you will stop stressing throughout the week about it and you will have no choice but to get it done just before the deadline.
Risky? Possibly! Genius? Maybe!
Gem x
PS – I said I would write these blogs all last week. On Friday I got real with myself because I too am a last-minute Larry and a deadline dancer.
Here I am, doing the productive polka writing these blogs in the exact time I outlined JUST BEFORE the deadline.
I promise when you start playing to your procrastination style it makes things easier. Go and dance on those deadlines!
PPS – If you’re here for the first time and you don’t know, I wrote a couple of books to help with procrastination. Get yours here.
For more useful blogs, check out…
- Why We All Need To ‘Sit In Our Sh*t’ At Times
- The Power of Productivity
- FREE Goal Setting Work Book 2023
- My Most Powerful Self Love Affirmation 2023
Gemma Ray is radio presenter, best selling author, communications coach and always the most filthy person in a WhatsApp group chat. Gemma tells it like it is and opens up about the stuff most people would never even dare admit to themselves, let alone put out in public.
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