3 Ways to KISS Procrastination Away for Good

Procrastination can be detrimental to an entrepreneur’s productivity and business growth. It sidelines a project or product going to market. Everyone has a certain activity they choose instead of the project they should be working on. Once you identify those procrastination pitfalls, it’s a little easier to steer clear of them.
The next time you feel the angst of procrastination, keep these three thoughts in mind to KISS procrastination away:
Keep It Super Simple
• If you’re an over thinker or try to anticipate every barrier before beginning, ask yourself, “if I had to accomplish this project in three steps or less, what would they be?” This simple exercise forces you to think about the critical essential steps and leave the less important tasks aside (or to delegate). Keep those three steps in mind as you execute your plan.
• Keep your mind clear to create simple solutions. Remove any distractions, like the TV, email prompts, unnecessary interruptions or telephone calls. This may mean setting boundaries or ground rules with family, especially if you’re a solo business owner with a home office. Have too many ideas? Keep a folder with ideas and review it monthly to see what could be added to your plan.
• Projects become complex because we try to solve it by ourselves. Use your working relationships to help you problem solve. Your solution may be as easy as asking your online community for help and direction. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel when someone you know may already have the solution that you can use, like a business coach.
Keep It Step by Step
• One overloaded entrepreneur had a big volunteer project looming. Faced with family obligations and a company she had to run, she procrastinated on this project that needed to be completed because she kept it all in her head. By simply writing down the first step and running through all of the resources that could help her with each step, she discovered that the project wasn’t going to be as time consuming as she once thought and instantly removed her self-imposed pressure (and procrastination).
• Overwhelm often stops people from even taking the first step. Overcome your overwhelm by breaking your project into manageable parts or sequences first. When you break a project into parts, it makes that project more realistic. It also gives those people who have the tendency to expand and make things bigger, a reality check.
• Write down your steps, timelines, and resources. Remember to take it one task at a time, cross off those completed tasks, and keep the end goal in mind. Celebrate those completed tasks (which can be as simple as patting yourself on the back.) This approach creates the step-by-step structure you need to get the tasks completed. Small business owners often don't write down their goals leaving their direction foggy. Writing down your goals, steps, timelines and resources makes the implementation plan concrete clearly paving the way to your destination.
Keep It Scheduled and Systematicr
One of the biggest reasons for procrastination is the way you organize your work. Other contributing factors that sideline most entrepreneurs include:
• Lack of clear goals
• Feelings that the tasks are exte
ally imposed on you
• Underestimating the difficulty of a project or task
• Underestimating the time required to complete a task
• Fear of failure
• Fear of success
• Perfectionism
• Using excuses of "no time"

Once you’ve identified your undercurrents that are getting in the way, look at ways to organize your work to keep your procrastination in check.
• Schedule tasks on one calendar. Keep one calendar and include those personal appointments, too. Too many calendars can overlap and make things more difficult than they need to be.
• Group related functions. Map out a schedule that sets aside chunks of time for client time, writing, or marketing. Make sure enough time is allocated for each project or task and give yourself some wiggle room between meetings to complete your to do's from that meeting.
• Use internal systems to help you keep moving ahead. With technology at your fingertips, look at creating rituals to get weekly projects completed by using the recurring function on your calendar to prompt you when you need to complete an upcoming task for your project.
• Use systems, like a lead generation system, so you bring in prospects continuously and have automated messages that do the work for you.
• Resist the urge to do it alone. Create an accountability partner that helps keep you accountable for completing your projects. Create a team to help you with mundane tasks. Many college interns would embrace the opportunity to help you grow your business (and you help them get college credit, too!)
Be
ard Meltzer once said: “Hard work is often easy work you didn’t get done at the proper time.” Keep these simple thought prompters in mind to KISS procrastination away:
• Keep It Super Simple
• Keep It Step by Step
• Keep it Scheduled and Systematic

Your Challenge:
Take one project that you’ve been procrastinating on. Identify the overall goal, the steps to achieve it, the timelines that each step needs to be completed by, and the resources available to assist you with each step. Schedule those steps and timelines on your calendar. Identify an accountability partner. Complete at least one step each day. In 21 days, see how far you've come.