Procrastination

As the summer holidays come flying towards us with all this talk of a global credit crunch and doom and gloom, there has never been a better time to procrastinate. Stick your head in the sand, and avoid doing anything that might spell "trouble!" ...

Nonsense, I hope you cry ...

As we start to think about beaches, and midges if you holiday in Scotland, in this issue of "Instant Improvement" I would like to share some thoughts on how to become an expert in procrastination,
sorry in defeating procrastination.

"What may be done at any time will be done at no time."
Scottish Proverb

 

Procrastination to me is it the "art" of wasting your own time.

Do you ever think about what you could achieve if you didn't allow yourself to get side tracked?

How many hours a week do you sit in front of the flat screen LCD Plasma Television Heater in the corner of your best room?

Oh yeah Graham, you never watch the box and are always reading about Lean thinking or Six Sigma or kaizen or
Taichi Ohno or kanbans or Deming or 5S or...

No, I am not for one moment suggesting that I am a shining example of a person who does not waste time.

I'm a fully paid up member of PA - Procrastinators Anonymous

Anyway, the purpose of this information is to help you focus on what is important to you and to stop doing things that
are not important to you.

I've been thinking about what is important to me.

My main goal is to help and inspire people to Continually Improve (That includes me as well!)

I'd like to give you two simple ideas that may help you.

A pre-requisite is that you have one or two big goals that you want to achieve.

Here is the experiment that you can try out, which I hope will help you.

Experiment Part 1

Do this monthly

Get a piece of paper, and divide into four columns.

Give each column a title moving from left to right.

1.Focus  2.Demand  3.Delusion 4 .Distraction

Under "1.Focus" write down any activity that will take you closer to achieving one of your "big goals"

i.e. Go on a training course in Continuous Improvement

Under "2.Demand" write down any activity where there will be personal consequences for you if you do not do this.

e.g. Write the monthly report for your boss or pay your car insurance

Under "3.Delusion" write down any activity that deludes you into a sense of doing something, but in reality does not contribute to one of your big goals.

e.g. checking your e-mail every 10 minutes and immediately responding to every new e-mail that arrives.

Under "4.Distraction" WRITE DOWN ANY ACTIVITY
that you find yourself wandering into. e.g. Surfing the internet, watching TV like a zombie while you munch through packets of cheesy snacks.

Hopefully you get the idea. A piece of paper, four columns with the most important headings going from left to right.

Experiment Part 2

Do this daily!

Get a piece of paper and divide it into four columns.

Give each column the following headings.

Time Activity Category (1-4) Time Spent

As you go through the day write down the time of day ,the activity you are on, which category from the monthly sheet
it falls under (1-4), and the amount of time you actually spend on it.

After a few days analyse your sheets and see how much time you are
spending on items

1.Focus
2.Demand
3.Delusion
4.Distraction.

If most of your time is spent on items 3 and 4 then you need to give yourself a one to one and discuss your future in terms of achieving your goals!

You can download a copy of the proforma to help You with this experiment here;

http://www.leankaizen.co.uk/proexperiment.html

Of course you could always put this idea on the back burner and
wait till it comes up on you're to do list.

Have fun ....

Best Regards,

Graham Ross

 
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