{"id":14894,"date":"2016-06-14T08:28:04","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T15:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/?p=14894"},"modified":"2016-06-14T08:28:04","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T15:28:04","slug":"who-are-the-biggest-procrastinators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gettingthingsdone.com\/2016\/06\/who-are-the-biggest-procrastinators\/","title":{"rendered":"Who are the biggest procrastinators?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The biggest procrastinators are\u00a0usually the most sophisticated, sensitive, creative, and intelligent people.<\/p>\n

Nailed you, did I? Well, I assume you\u2019re in the sophisticated, creative, and intelligent category. That probably means you have large numbers of things stuck in your mind, in your briefcase, and on your desk about which things are not moving forward quite as consistently as they could be.<\/p>\n

Major reason:<\/strong> the precise next physical visible activity (next action) has probably not been decided on the to-do\u2019s. The bright people usually have some sort of reminders about their projects and things to do on lists, in piles, or lying around, so they won\u2019t forget to think about their commitments. Bully. But every time they catch the briefest glimpse of any of them, they instantly race forward in their mind, rapidly and intelligently creating images of all the possible pieces that have to fit together and all the things that might have to be involved in getting them to happen and all the possible negative consequences if any one of them slips (and all the things that they might be forgetting in all this). Whew! Freaked themselves right out. I\u2019d quit, too.<\/p>\n

Three solutions:<\/strong> (1) frontal lobotomy, (2) bottle-in-front-of-me, or (3) figure out the very next action required to move each of those projects forward. Each will take some of the pressure off, but I recommend option #3 for the most permanent and elegant fix.<\/p>\n

I was recently reminded about this again graphically, coaching several executives on Wall Street one-on-one. You couldn\u2019t find many savvier, more creative, industrious, successful folks, yet each had varying degrees of \u201cstuckness\u201d about many important projects and issues. They simply hadn\u2019t thought these things quite through enough to get to the very next action step. When I got them to make that decision, tons of things uncorked and their own peace of mind went up dramatically. What amazed them the most was that it only took a few seconds to decide the next step, and that they didn\u2019t have to have the project totally figured out to get moving on it. Big surprise.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t just decide that you need to set a meeting\u2014decide whether that\u2019s an email to send or a phone call to make, and to whom. Watch things move…and how much more deserving of the “sophisticated, sensitive, creative, and intelligent” label you’ll feel!<\/p>\n

\u2013David Allen<\/p>\n

This article appeared in David’s monthly newsletter, Productive Living. Subscribe for free<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The biggest procrastinators are\u00a0usually the most sophisticated, sensitive, creative, and intelligent people. Nailed you, did I? Well, I assume you\u2019re in the sophisticated, creative, and intelligent category. That probably means you have large numbers of things stuck in your mind, in your briefcase, and on your desk about which things are not moving forward quite … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Who are the biggest procrastinators?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-david-allen","category-productivity-tips","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWho are the biggest procrastinators?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Allen on GTD\u00ae and procrastination.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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