3 Ways to Stop Procrastination and Be More Productive

The key to getting important tasks done is developing effective strategies for getting started.

My role as a strategic coach is to help organizations figure out how they're going to scale more effectively and more efficiently. One of my primary focuses is helping the senior executives in becoming more productive and enabling them to accomplish more strategic work on top of their day-to-day responsibilities.

As a company grows, the complexity and number of tasks increase exponentially. Without a strategy and a clear plan, most leaders get bogged down on the never-ending list of urgent items. If you don't make time for strategic work, it will never get done and the company will never scale.

One of the challenges of strategic work is that oftentimes, the tasks are big and complicated. In these cases, many executives find themselves in analysis paralysis and end up just deferring to the urgent tasks of day-to-day work.

The best way to overcome this roadblock is to have effective strategies for getting started on the work even if it seems daunting and overwhelming at first. Here are some of the ways that I find highly successful leaders make quick initial progress on strategic work.

1. Find simple first steps

One of the best things you can do when trying to get started on complicated work is to figure out a simple first task that will get you started. By breaking things down into small steps and figuring out one first step you can make that will give you traction, you will begin the process of building momentum.

Much like lean/agile product development, the goal is to figure out the smallest and simplest thing you can do to gain knowledge, information, and test out your assumptions. Once you begin the feedback flywheel, you'll quickly see new paths and be able to map out how you'll achieve success.

2. Create time boxes

As a writer, I know that writer's block is a real challenge and can be difficult to overcome. One of the most effective strategies is to commit to a fixed amount of time to just sit and write anything that comes to mind. By focusing on making a time commitment and not worrying about exactly what you're trying to accomplish, you can free up your mind and let your thoughts flow.

The same principleis true with complicated projects. By just setting aside 30 minutes and sitting down to think about the project tasks, they will start to reveal themselves and you can start working. The key to the strategy is setting up the right context and making sure your space is distraction-free so you can really sit down and think about what needs to get done.

3. Talk it through

One of my roles as a coach is to serve as a sounding board. In my work with executives, I often just let them talk through what they're thinking and the strategies they're considering. Often I don't even have to say anything; by just letting them talk they will begin to organize their thoughts and clarify their strategies.

If you're feeling stuck, find someone who's a good listener, and just talk them through what you're trying to do, what your goals are, and how you're thinking of approaching it. They don't need to be knowledgeable about the situation or the project, they just need to be good at asking clarifying questions and checking your rationale. In fact, you don't even need a real person, sometimes just talking to yourself or an inanimate object will give you the space you need to organize your thoughts.

Regardless of the strategy you use to get going once you get started on something, it's much easier to keep the momentum. Oftentimes, you just need to break through that first step to set everything into motion.

Sign up for my newsletter to get these delivered to your inbox once a week... http://www.eckfeldt.com/subscribe