Sometimes we find ourselves returning to a task repeatedly, still unwilling to take the first step. We hear a little voice in our head saying, “Yeah, good idea, but . . . no.” At this point, we need to ask that voice some questions, to figure out what’s really ma...

Procrastination is often confused with laziness, but they are very different.

Procrastination is an active process – we choose to do something else instead of the task that we know we should be doing. In con...

When we’re not motivated to reach our goal, it’s hard even getting started. So even the first small step towards it will seem like an achievement. For instance, if we have some reading to do for our paper, spend ten minut...

Setting a timer (after putting our phone on the airplane mode) can be a simple way of defining an intent for ourselves. We’ll find it easier to focus on.

Breaking up the time we spend on the task into bite-sized pieces will...

For more effective, we can divide up our day into four categories of activities based on a scale of urgency versus importance.

Q 1: Import & Urgent ~ Short-term crises and problems

Q 2: Import but Not Urgent ~ Long-term strategic goals

Q...

Spend as much time in quadrant 2, the long-term goal-related quadrant, as we possibly can. If we find that ourself procrastinating, pick two tasks that we can do at the start of our day that will help progress us towards our long-term goals the m...