How to Avoid Procrastination and Perfectionism

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  1. Spend your time wisely to achieve your full potential.
    Spend 80% of your time on activities that you have passion, competence and need in order to achieve extraordinary results. Delegate everything else. Consider completing the on-line StrengthsQuest form (www.strengthsquest.com) to identify your strengths.Action:

    List your top 30 work-related activities. For each activity, assess your ability to do each one based on the descriptions below:
    • Masterful: extraordinary ability; passion; gives you energy
    • Excellent: superior ability; no passion
    • Competent: adequate ability; boredom; little improvement in performance over time
    • Incompetent: inadequate ability; failure; stressful
    • Caution: Delegation without coaching and mentoring does NOT work!

  2. Overcome “there is always a bigger boat” syndrome. Success = achievement + fulfillment.
    Happiness and fulfillment are directly related to how we measure success. Winners measure progress. Losers measure ideal outcomes and feel guilty about failing to achieve perfection.
    Action:
    What is your ideal outcome in the following areas? Where are you today? What has been your progress over the past year?
    • Health
    • Wealth
    • Talents
    • Career Success
    • PossessionsStrategies to be a winner: (1) don’t measure against others; (2) accept that ideal outcomes are a moving target; (3) commit to daily gratitude; (4) celebrate progress every day; (5) spend 80% of your time in your mastery zone; (6) accept that past does not equal future; and (7) make every moment count.
  3. Focus on the 80% rule to avoid perfectionism.
    Perfectionism is about refusing to decide and commit until you achieve your ideal outcome as a minimum requirement.Perfectionism gets in the way of confidence, motivation and effectiveness. Focus on getting the 1st 80% done as quickly as possible. Beyond the 1st 80%, ask the following questions: Who cares? Who will notice? Can I make a significant improvement? Is the increased quality greater than the lost time?