Second, come fully prepared for each task you work on.

When you sit down to work or to begin a task, make sure that you have everything on hand so that you won’t have to get up or move until the task is done. Being fully prepared is a powerful motivator for staying with the task until it is finished.

The 80/20 rule says that 20% of the task often accounts for 80% of the value of that task.

This is probably what Confucius meant when he said that, ‘‘A journey of 1,000 leagues begins with a single step.’’

Once you have taken even one small step to start the job, you will often find yourself continuing on with the task to completion.

Sometimes the best way to stop procrastinating and complete a major job is to take a small slice and complete just that piece, just as you would take a single slice of salami and eat it.

When you select a small piece of the task and then discipline yourself to do it and get it behind you, it will often give you the momentum you need to counter inertia and stop procrastinating.

Just as a block of Swiss cheese is full of holes, you treat your task like a block of cheese and you punch holes in it.

Select a five-minute part of the job and do only that. Don’t worry about the whole job.

Get it over with and behind you. Everything else for the rest of the day will seem easier in comparison.

Starting the day with exercise was much more likely to lead to the habit of regular exercise than putting it off until the end of the day when it was easier to make excuses and procrastinate.

What will happen to you if this job is not done on schedule?

Both fear and desire are great motivators of human behavior. Sometimes you can motivate yourself by the desire for the rewards of task completion. Sometimes you can motivate yourself into action by thinking about the negative consequences and what will happen to you if do not get things done as promised.