Here's an interview with Tim Pychyl, the author for How To Solve The Procrastination Puzzle. We discuss how to deal with procrastination for entrepreneurs with some real world examples.
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Tim Pychyl is a world class expert on procrastination. He has been doing that for 22 years. Tim is an associate professor in psychology and you can get his book “How To Solve The Procrastination Puzzle” from Amazon.
Entrepreneurs are focused on learning new difficult skills. It is very important to learn difficult skills, implement them and beat procrastination.
• Should students and entrepreneurs take the same approach to solving the procrastination puzzle?
There are a lot of similarities and the basic similarity is that we are all human beings and we all experience lots of different emotions. Some of these emotions are negative and people do not want to experience negative emotions. The easiest solution is to avoid doing the things that make us have bad feelings. People always do that and postpone these activities for the next day or next week or they do not even do them at all.
You have to get pass that. It is not about what you want to do. It is about what you have to do. It is really about overcoming that resistance.
• How would you approach building scary habits like public speaking or cold calling?
If we pick cold calling for example, there are many negative emotions that can come over you. You have to do your best to overcome those negative emotions and to get out of your comfort zone. Only then, you will be able to achieve results.
If we are feeling defeated and if we are feeling that we do not have the skills, that is the time when we are most likely to give up. The fear of failure can make us put things off.
• Do you think that procrastination can be a good thing?
There are many forms of delay. You can find many good reasons to postpone something for tomorrow, but if you want to be a really successful entrepreneur, you must not delay anything. You have to do the work that has to be done as soon as possible.
Procrastination is when you know it is the time to act and you are not acting and the only reason why you are not acting is you. However, if you have a more important task that is a priority for you, then that is not procrastination.
Procrastination cannot be a good thing. It is a negative form of delay. Most people are interested in decreasing procrastination, because it can contribute to our success only in a negative way.
• Did you optimize your life to avoid procrastination?
There are not perfect people in this world and there are times when even the best people procrastinate. But, the less we procrastinate, the better. You have to make your procrastination small exceptions in your life.
Sometimes people procrastinate so much that they never even get back and do the work. Every day and every minute we should make ourselves do as much work as possible today and procrastinate as much less as possible because we are not going to feel more like it tomorrow.
I have the most beautiful toolbox of anti – procrastination and I use it every day. There are many strategies that I use very carefully in order to be successful.
• Do you plan out your days?
My calendar is full of various activities that I have to do throughout the day. There are activities like exercise, research, teaching, administration.
One of the most precious luxuries that we have in our lives is time and that is true to every person on this planet. That is the only resource you cannot get more of. You can make more money, but you cannot make more time. You have to be very careful how you use your time and you have to keep track of it.