In the second of her Occasional Newsletters, Sarah Litvinoff offers more tips and techniques for fellow sufferers as she continues to write her next book, The Procrastination Plan.

As I believe that procrastination is not ALL bad (uncomfortable though it is) periodically I'll concentrate on insights into reasons behind your inability to do what needs to be done. Sometimes this is because you are ignoring your wise inner voice, which is communicating with you in the only way it can — by going on strike.

Now is the time you are finally going to get down to doing what you've been putting off. No question about it. Suddenly you are aware of an accumulation of fierce energy in you — an unstoppable urge to get started at once. The only drawback is that the thing you feel you MUST and WILL do now is not what you've been procrastinating over... It's something quite different, and usually less urgent.

This is a phenomenon I call 'tennis shoeing'. I can't quite remember why, but it had to do with someone who, as a deadline loomed, always felt compelled to whiten her tennis shoes. In her case this was particularly strange as more often than not she had no tennis game planned.

For a long time my version of this was a pressing need to clean behind kitchen appliances, the heavier the better. With a deadline almost upon me I was to be found red-faced with exertion in the kitchen, straining to inch a large fridge or cooker out from its niche, a plethora of cleaning products and instruments on hand to deal with that satisfyingly stubborn greasy ridge of grot that tends to accumulate in such places.

The desire to do something else, indeed, is a characteristic of procrastination. It's a rare person who simply stares into space doing nothing but obsess about not getting on (though it happens). Usually, after some moments of failing to gear yourself up to tackle what's important you start to do something else instead.

Quite often it's a mindless, holding activity — 'I'll just do this for a couple of minutes and then I'll get on' — surfing, watching TV, reading, playing Patience, checking messages, doing a puzzle, game (on-line or off), listening to the radio, searching for something you lost ages ago yet which now seems imperative to find, and so on (add your own).

As the practised procrastinator will testify: mindless displacement activity not only puts off the evil hour, it adds to the pain at the final reckoning. The two minutes inevitably stretch so long you can hardly bear to add up the time you've spent on 'nothing'. When you look back on the waste of the precious moments in which you could have been dynamic and effective, you see only more waste — a use of energy on something that offers no lasting pleasure or pride. It's the procrastinator's emotional hangover.

Occasionally the lure of mindless activity is actually your Inner Procrastinator's way of telling you that you are asking too much of yourself, and need some down time (as I explain elsewhere in Befriend your Inner Procrastinator). This is a message that must be heeded if you are ever to be effective, and I explain there how to embrace, enjoy and schedule 'nothingness' as an essential pacing tool.

Much of the time however it's as bad as you think: you are allowing yourself to be engulfed by laziness. It's not clever; it's not funny — and you'll pay for it tomorrow.

But there is a way of harnessing this tendency to your advantage. To do this, you need to understand two laws of procrastination.

1. Anything is more attractive than what you really should be doing.

2. Feeling bad about yourself prolongs procrastinatory tendencies; feeling good galvanises you to take action.

In a nutshell, then, the intelligent procrastinator avoids what should be done by doing something different, but USEFUL instead.

My old habit of cleaning behind the cooker or the fridge showed an instinctive grasp of this, albeit not the best example of it. I got a chore out of the way which otherwise might never have seemed important enough to prioritise. Doing it gave me a virtuous glow. As a bonus, because it was a physical activity my mind wandered  beneficially, and before I knew it my subconscious was presenting me with ideas to do with the project I was avoiding. Result: I would go back to my desk able to direct my energy where it needed to go.

Alternating works because at some point what you have been avoiding mysteriously becomes more attractive to you. This can be because:

a) you've become bored with the alternative activity

b) once you've stopped obsessing about what you should be doing you stop resisting it

c) it breaks the 'DO IT!'/'WON'T!' stand-off between you and your Inner Procrastinator.

d) it's the human equivalent of pressing 'page refresh' — new ideas and solutions come to you without effort.

Alternating a creative or intellectual project you are avoiding with a physical one is often the best use of procrastinatory contrariness. Do the housework, the gardening, DIY, or in some way use your hands to practical effect — making, mending, revamping.

You will feel the benefits in a number of ways. You will work off some of the nervous negative energy that is stressing you and making it even harder to get on. You will free your mind: often it is when we are not concentrating on something that the answers come. Sitting at a desk can lock your thought processes while doing something completely different can shake them up refreshingly.

Most importantly: even if you don't get back to what you 'should' be doing today, or tomorrow, you will have achieved something. A sense of achievement stops the spiral down to paralysed apathy. When you are patting yourself on the back you are not beating yourself up (which procrastinators are all too good at). A can-do feeling breeds confidence and breaks blocks.

One of my clients was so badly blocked on the thesis she was supposed to be writing that she feared she would never be able to write another word of it, never mind finish it. None of the usual techniques worked on her, so I got radical.

I banned her from touching, looking at, or even thinking about her thesis for at least a week. The rule was that she should choose some other project to concentrate on. I was surprised at her choice: it was to dedicate herself to her fitness and looks. She'd been putting on weight, and her life was sedentary. She started a de-tox diet and an exercise programme, and spent a lot of the time paying attention to her neglected hair, nails and skin. Before the week was up she was disobeying my injunction: sneaking into her study to work on her thesis, which she'd realised needed completely reorganising and restructuring, a process she was raring to start. She told me afterwards that her self-esteem rocketed when she took charge of her body, and the sense of optimism it created changed her defeatist, depressed attitude to her thesis.

Some hints to make the procrastinator's contrariness work for you:

* Select an alternative activity that you feel ready and able to do, and which will make you feel good to start or complete

* Remind yourself that getting moving in ANY area has a knock-on effect in breaking through procrastination

* Choosing something that is very different works best

* If you can't do something very different (you're at work, or desk-bound) go for anything else you have to do which you are not resisting — for instance, you're procrastinating about writing an urgent report, but feel perfectly able to draw up an agenda for next week's meeting.

* Literally alternate the activities using the 5-minute method (explained elsewhere), or concentrate solely on the new activity until it is finished or you find yourself naturally thinking more positively about the project you've been avoiding.

* Seeing as whatever you choose is bound to be less urgent than what you are resisting, you are GETTING AHEAD. This is the height of virtue, and what non-procrastinators do as a matter of course. Please congratulate yourself.

NEXT TIME: The hate jobs — chores, tax returns and other boring must-dos.

HAPPY EXPERIMENTING! 

Sarah X

COACHING WITH SARAH

http://www.sarahlitvinoff.com

'In the business of bringing out your best'
 

If you have a tip or anecdote you want to share, or a question for me to answer in a future Procrastinators Anonymous, please submit it through 'Send Us Stuff'.