REPOST: How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To

Employees, even leaders, sometimes lack motivation to accomplish tasks. However, procrastinating can affect a project's timeline or a deliverable negatively. Thus, it's best to find solutions on how to deal with it. This Harvard Business Review article provides some strategies on how to beat procrastination.

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There’s that project you’ve left on the backburner – the one with the deadline that’s growing uncomfortably near.  And there’s the client whose phone call you really should return – the one that does nothing but complain and eat up your valuable time.  Wait, weren’t you going to try to go to the gym more often this year?

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 Can you imagine how much less guilt, stress, and frustration you would feel if you could somehow just make yourself do the things you don’t want to do when you are actually supposed to do them?  Not to mention how much happier and more effective you would be?

The good news (and its very good news) is that you can get better about not putting things off, if you use the right strategy.  Figuring out which strategy to use depends on why you are procrastinating in the first place:

Reason #1   You are putting something off because you are afraid you will screw it up.

Solution:  Adopt a “prevention focus.”

There are two ways to look at any task.  You can do something because you see it as a way to end up better off than you are now – as an achievement or accomplishment.  As in, if I complete this project successfully I will impress my boss, or if I work out regularly I will look amazing. Psychologists call this a promotion focus – and research shows that when you have one, you are motivated by the thought of making gains, and work best when you feel eager and optimistic.  Sounds good, doesn’t it?  Well, if you are afraid you will screw up on the task in question, this is notthe focus for you.  Anxiety and doubt undermine promotion motivation, leaving you less likely to take any action at all.

What you need is a way of looking at what you need to do that isn’t undermined by doubt – ideally, one that thrives on it.  When you have a prevention focus, instead of thinking about how you can end up better off, you see the task as a way to hang on to what you’ve already got – to avoid loss.   For the prevention-focused, successfully completing a project is a way to keep your boss from being angry or thinking less of you.  Working out regularly is a way to not “let yourself go.”  Decades of research, which I describe in my book Focus, shows that prevention motivation is actually enhanced by anxiety about what might go wrong.  When you are focused on avoiding loss, it becomes clear that the only way to get out of danger is to take immediate action.  The more worried you are, the faster you are out of the gate.

I know this doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs, particularly if you are usually more the promotion-minded type, but there is probably no better way to get over your anxiety about screwing up than to give some serious thought to all the dire consequences of doing nothing at all.    Go on, scare the pants off yourself.  It feels awful, but it works.

Reason #2     You are putting something off because you don’t “feel” like doing it.

Solution: Make like Spock and ignore your feelings.  They’re getting in your way.

In his excellent book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman points out that much of the time, when we say things like “I just can’t get out of bed early in the morning, “ or “I just can’t get myself to exercise,” what we really mean is that we can’t get ourselves to feel like doing these things.  After all, no one is tying you to your bed every morning.  Intimidating bouncers aren’t blocking the entrance to your gym.  Physically, nothing is stopping you – you just don’t feel like it.  But as Burkeman asks,  “Who says you need to wait until you ‘feel like’ doing something in order to start doing it?”

Think about that for a minute, because it’s really important.  Somewhere along the way, we’ve all bought into the idea – without consciously realizing it – that to be motivated and effective we need tofeel like we want to take action.  We need to be eager to do so.  I really don’t know why we believe this, because it is 100% nonsense. Yes, on some level you need to be committed to what you are doing – you need to want to see the project finished, or get healthier, or get an earlier start to your day.  But you don’t need to feel like doing it.

In fact, as Burkeman points out, many of the most prolific artists, writers, and innovators have become so in part because of their reliance on work routines that forced them to put in a certain number of hours a day, no matter how uninspired (or, in many instances, hungover) they might have felt.  Burkeman reminds us of renowned artist Chuck Close’s observation that “Inspiration is for amateurs.  The rest of us just show up and get to work.”

So if you are sitting there, putting something off because you don’t feel like it, remember that you don’t actually need to feel like it.  There is nothing stopping you.

Reason #3   You are putting something off because it’s hard, boring, or otherwise unpleasant.

Solution:  Use if-then planning.

Too often, we try to solve this particular problem with sheer will:  Next time, I will make myself start working on this sooner.  Of course, if we actually had the willpower to do that, we would never put it off in the first place.   Studies show that people routinely overestimate their capacity for self-control, and rely on it too often to keep them out of hot water.

Do yourself a favor, and embrace the fact that your willpower is limited, and that it may not always be up to the challenge of getting you to do things you find difficult, tedious, or otherwise awful.  Instead, use if-then planning to get the job done.

Making an if-then plan is more than just deciding what specific steps you need to take to complete a project – it’s also deciding where and when you will take them.

If it is 2pm, then I will stop what I’m doing and start work on the report Bob asked for.

If my boss doesn’t mention my request for a raise at our meeting, then I will bring it up again before the meeting ends.

By deciding in advance exactly what you’re going to do, and when and where you’re going to do it, there’s no deliberating when the time comes.   No do I really have to do this now?, or can this wait till later? or maybe I should do something else instead.   It’s when we deliberate that willpower becomes necessary to make the tough choice.  But if-then plans dramatically reduce the demands placed on your willpower, by ensuring that you’ve made the right decision way ahead of the critical moment. In fact,  if-then planning has been shown in over 200 studies to increase rates of goal attainment and productivity by 200%-300% on average.

I realize that the three strategies I’m offering you – thinking about the consequences of failure, ignoring your feelings, and engaging in detailed planning – don’t sound as fun as advice like “Follow your passion!” or “Stay positive!”  But they have the decided advantage of actually being effective –which, as it happens, is exactly what you’ll be if you use them.

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REPOST: Lead Your Employees Somewhere Positive and Other Must-Read Business Tips

This Entrepreneur.com article consolidates some useful tips for business owners.

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Business owners know more acutely than most people that change is inevitable. It is a fact of life. But not all change is positive, and it becomes difficult to lead employees when they think you are taking them in a bad direction, says Mark Sanborn, president of Sanborn & Associates Inc., a Lonetree, Colo.-based leadership development firm.

But that doesn't mean your employees don't have guts and grit. "They can even handle the challenges and sacrifices of a new undertaking if they believe there is a payoff on arrival," says Sanborn. He tells the anecdote of a client whose vision statement for his company was full of financial goals but was silent when it came to quality of life for employees.

"I wasn't surprised that nobody could remember what the vision was, nor care about achieving it," Sanborn says. "Their vision statement became effective when it was rewritten to express the future for all stakeholders, including employees." 

Treat customers with respect.
Selling doesn't come naturally to everyone. Some people feel uncomfortable putting themselves out there for the sake of their idea, product or service. One way to help yourself relax is to make a connection with your prospective client, says Cristi Young, founder of No.2 Creative, a New York City-based branding firm. Treat him or her like a person. "You'd be surprised how many people forget to say hello, ask how their weekend was, or remember a personal detail they shared with you last time you met. Connect and care first." 

To retain employees, give them a meaningful career path.
Chances are you can't compete with Google and Facebook when it comes to employee salaries, but a high salary is not the only carrot you can provide to retain top employees. One way to keep them around is to provide them with opportunities for real growth in their career, says Carolyn Betts, founder of San Francisco-based Betts Recruiting. She recommends having a frank discussion with employees on their yearly employment anniversaries about how they see themselves growing within your company. "Share your thoughts with where you see them headed and what opportunities exist for them to continue to be challenged," she says. 

Base your marketing strategy on customer behavior.
As a business owner, you may welcome the rise of mobile traffic even while assuming you can shoehorn your old marketing strategies onto the new platforms. Not so, says Jayson DeMers, founder of AudienceBloom, a Seattle-based SEO agency: "If you're not delivering your marketing messages in a way that's tailored specifically to the experience of a smartphone or tablet user, chances are you're turning customers away." Find out how your customers are using their mobile devices, and what their expectations are. "Data from your existing website analytics program can give you mobile insights, as can targeted surveys, [which can] form the foundation of your mobile content strategy," DeMers says. 

Choose investment bankers, not investment banks.
When choosing an investment banker to sell your business, the experience and know-how of the individual(s) doing your deal is more important than the firm to which their name is attached, says Jay Turo, chief executive of Growthink, a Los Angeles-based consulting firm. "Information technology and social media have leveled the playing field between big and small investment banking firms," he says. Your personal chemistry with the banker also matters. Ask yourself how, when and where you prefer to communicate, and then evaluate bankers on how well they match up.

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Bertrand Management Group helps business owners achieve their business goals through careful planning and execution. For more tips and updates, visit this blog site.