I’ve discovered that overcoming procrastination and thus thinking more positively and being considered more reliable by others, is really a simple process of transferring motivation from the things we love to do and do often, over to the things we don’t like doing and that we avoid often.

With some basic time-boxing and motivational re-harnessing, you can literally start to enjoy your high procrastination task as much as one of your daily favorite activities. To many mangers and motivation coaches leave out the motivational component because they don’t understand it.

That’s because the best way to overcome procrastination or under-performance is as simple as it is counterintuitive. You have to do it to see it work, and it gets faster and easier each time you apply it. From a behavioral perspective, it’s all about positively reinforcing manageable approximations to realistic high-procrastination tasks (performance goals).

Overcoming procrastination involves the same motivational processes that underlie the evidence-based treatment of clinical depression and the cure for autism. Talk about leveraging the brains rewiring ability!

Borrowing motivation from high-probability behaviors is also the basis of effective performance management systems in the best organizations. But usually they do it but can’t explain it.

The evidence-base says behavior/environment change is far more important than cognitive/thought change. The capacities for sustained positive self-talk and work-performance thrive in positive-reinforcement rich environments (see activation therapy, and meta-analytic component analysis for depression treatment analysis for depression treatment).

Thanks for your thought provoking article. I hope to be back soon to read more. Greatfully, – Duddy (Professional Counselor and Behavior-Change Consultant).

There are reasons why we become unmotivated in the first place. Maybe the situation changes and the task that we wish to complete ins’t really worth it anymore. Maybe we discover that we have more important things to do. Maybe, the task that we do is harder that we initially thought and a complete revise of the strategy plan is needed.

I am very happy to hear that it has worked for you. Keep it up and you will be more productive as the days go by.