What you describe actually sounds pretty common to me. Many books have been written procrastination, but I'll be brief.

The most important things, IMO, are:

1) Make it a conscious decision; don't leave it "at the back of your mind". GTD helps with this because you actually look at a list and choose what to do instead of winging-it. This can be harder to do at home than at work - I try to set aside specific time for "productive stuff".

2) Recognise and overcome resistance. If you've made it a conscious decision, but you're still not doing the thing you know you should, you're probably resisting it for some reason. Typical reasons include not actually being sure what to do, concern about not being perfect enough, and the activity just being unpleasant. Consciously recognise that you are resisting it, ideally work out why, and then consciously decide exactly what to do and do it. Within limits of sense, try to do the things you're resisting first. It's amazing how much easier it is once you acknowledge the resistance and (ideally) the reason for it. With practice it gets easier, too.

Unless your reasons for resisting are really deep/serious, I'm guessing you don't need the shrink. (I am not a medical professional; see one if you need medical advice because what I write isn't.)

See also "The Now Habit" - Neil Fiore (often recommended/mentioned here).

Hope this helps,

aef

In addition to aef's great suggestions, I'd offer a quick GTD-based take on procrastination (I wrote about it in Some David Allen "twos" - two reasons we procrastinate, and two kinds of problems): There are only two reasons for procrastination: The task is either a) overwhelming (too big), or b) not motivating (unpleasant).

In your case you've said you've broken projects down into small tasks (a above), however, GTD does involve a switch from traditional todo lists - "next actions" are *really* concrete, with no dependencies, and (as a guideline) can be done in one sitting. A few examples from your life might help us to double-check your granularity.

That said, it might be the b) case above: You're not committed to their happening. Every action should have a real "I want to see this done" feel to it. (Note that sometimes you have to think a bit before you get to that level, e.g., visiting the dentist - sure, I really don't like going, but the larger concern - oral health - is worth it to me.)

Hope that helps!

I have a couple of thoughts on your procrastination problem:

The short thought first.
It doesn't sound like you're actually writing down your next actions. Some people genuinely don't need to write down their next actions... but if you're not writing them down, and you're having trouble doing them, that's probably a sign to try something different. I've found it's much easier to procrastinate when I'm holding all of my next actions in my head - but when I have a tangible list, they seem much more do-able.

And now the long one.
It doesn't sound like you have trouble remembering the things you need to get done, just that you can't make yourself do them, and you're not sure why. I can't address your why, but I will comment on mine, in the hope that it will help you.

I was.. am scared of getting things done, because I don't know what will come after them. I am, in a sense, scared of my own competence. It's not that I can't get things done, but I don't know what will come next, and I just want to stay in my comfort zone of crisis cleaning, forgetting to get groceries, not taking care of our only car, and stressing over getting my work done in the lab. I dragged tasks that needed to be done out as long as possible, and postponed anything that could be postponed, for the comfort of knowing I had something else that needed to be done.

You just can't live like that forever.

What is helping me (and is actually discussed, a little, in the 2nd half of the book) is the ability to use GTD to focus on bigger pictures. As I get more of my low level stuff put away, I have more time to think about what I want to do with my life, besides pay the last of my hospital bills. I've gotten most of the big pieces of junk off my runway, so now I'm starting at 50,000 feet and trying to land. Which, if you don't know how to fly a plane, is scary as hell, but you have to do it because eventually you'll run out of gas. and at least I won't run into derelicts sitting on the runway.

Thanks for all of your replies.

I think I'm actually scared of implmenting GTD fully. I have no idea what things will be like once that is done BUT I think I've reached that time in my life when I've asked "Ok now's enough. If you don't do something about it then the next 30something years will just be the same." I reached this point about 6 months ago about my physical fitness and shape and haven't looked back since. I feel and look better than I ever did. Think the time is right for GTD in my life.

@GeekLady - I think I'm the same. I've been told I'm a control freak and so maybe not implementing GTD is my way of staying in control no matter how caotic it is.

Next actions are to finish the book and that I can do this week once the kids are in bed. Then the weekend go and buy some files and folders and start processing.

I've started brain dumping into Microsoft OneNote at the moment. I appreciate that I can't do all of this electronically but it seems to be good enough for now. Can't wait for David's GTD for Outlook 2007/Vista.

@aef - Thanks for the suggestions. I've ordered the book and will be the next thing I read after GTD.

@cornell - Thanks for this links. I read through most of them last night. This is a sign that I definately need to finish the GTD book and start practising it. After all reading GTD last night should have been my next action :D

Thanks again.

Jason,

Your life sounds a lot like mine. If it wasn't for the oil dummy light, I'd be hurting for certain. Thankfully, none of my engines have met your doom, but I'm amazed nothing has ever happened in all honesty. :)

I have a problem doing simple things as well. There really is no reason. I can get on spurts where I can nailed out 30 things, and other times where the whole day can begin and that long list of "next actions" just staring back at me, and literally nothing gets done.

While I have not figured it out, I suspect I know what the issue is, and it might be yours as well, if not a variation thereof.

I get into ruts and my routine. Getting my hair cut, is a chore. I hate the unknown of if I will have to wait 10 minutes or 60 minutes to get my hair cut, so I just don't go. Plus, it takes up time I could be staring at my todo list, hoping it will get done on its own. If I chose a barber that scheduled times and made appointments for me, I'd probably go without any issue. I hate the dentist, I don't like going at all, I avoid it to the point that, I am probably going to pay for it later. The issue of Oral health is a concern, but like your engine being destroyed so many times, you'd think you'd learn your lesson, but we are people of habit, and if the dentist called me and said, your appointment is tomorrow at 4pm, I'd probably go.

When it comes to things that don't require appointments, the "pain" factor kicks in. For example, if you received your paycheck in the mail every other week, you must deposit it into your account, or you will run out of money or worse yet, overdraft and pay super high fees. That is painful. So, getting to the bank to get money into it is a motivational factor. Your probably more likely to pay a creditor on time who charges huge late fees, vs those who don't charge or the charges are minimal. When it comes to paying bills, auto-payments from my bank are good because they happen w/o my interaction. Less things for me to schedule.

For things which are just daily tasks you have to do, or projects at work, or things with soft or even hard deadlines, I will typically wait until the last minute to get it done if it has a deadline. Even if I can get it done right now, in 5 minutes, if its not due for 3 months, I'll wait 3 months. For things I must do, which have consequences if I don't complete them, but don't have any hard deadlines, then I will typically take those things and drag them out, finding excuses to keep them justified as being in progress, until I can't justify it anymore and get it done, just to get it off my back.

As you can see from these examples, while someone might see a common thread in these, I see them as different reasons, based on the situation.

I read recently from an ADHD coach, that for those of us with ADHD, we should do things we enjoy and want to do first, and the things are don't really want to do for the afternoon or post-fun projects. This has potential, because your not side-tracked working on something you hate, looking forward to something you enjoy. It helps w/ focus or so they say.

I've come of come to an empass, where I need to master my issues or I'm going to fall hard. I can't live my life building mountains, then getting mad they are too big. Even if I sat down and worked just to get out of the valley, so-to-speak, and finished a bunch of things that are weighing me down, I have a bunch of less important projects waiting for me on the other side. More mountains.

While I could solve dental issues, and hair cuts, and even probably auto-maintenance, by having the service provide schedule things for me, it is the (no one else required) issues I need to figure out, and quite honestly, if I figure that out, then the service appointments, may be resolved as well.

Depression is known to keep you from doing even the simple things in life. But, I know in part, my depression is caused by my ADHD and the inability to start and complete things, and that in and of itself is depressing.

Thanks for all these helpful comments on procrastination.

I've tried to figure out the roots of my own procrastination, which is serious enough to cause considerable stress in my own life and the lives of people around me.

Normally, I'm fairly responsible. But in certain areas of my life, I will put things off until the last possible minute; the only thing that will motivate me to get the thing done is an imminent deadline; and at that point I will often work for 24-36 hours straight to get something done that could have been done with less stress over time, if I had only started earlier.

I think I've located a few reasons for my procrastination:

1) Perfectionism and fear of failure. If I have a writing project, for instance, I will find all sorts of busywork related to the project in order to avoid the task of writing itself. This is because I am deathly afraid of seeing my own crappy first drafts. So I create the illusion that I'm busy, even when I could start the writing right away. This creates a temporary space of freedom--before having to expose my writing to the world. But it eventually blows up on me.

2) Guilt and avoidance. I will put off going to the dentist for fear that he/she will discover something that could have been avoided if I had gone to the dentist earlier. Stupid, huh?

3) Sense of control. Stress provides a false sense of control; it makes it seem like I'm active, busy, etc. You could say that I'm addicted to stress.

So those are a few reasons for the procrastination.

One thing I've been trying to make sure I'm concious of in this respect is something I read by Tony Buzan in The Ultimate Book of Mindmaps. Basically, its just a change in mental perspective, that look at each attempt as merely a way to learn something. Many people quote Edison in his invention of the lightbulb along this route. When he tried 1000 (can't remember the exact number but let's go with this) different materials for the filament in light bulbs, and still didn't find one that worked, instead of feeling that he failed 1000 times, he learned 1000 things that didn't work. It's much like the crappy first draft.

Essentially, the mental trick is that as long as you've learned something from each attempt/draft/revision/etc. then it isn't a failure, because you've made forward progress. In the same book mentioned above, there are a few other quotes by Einstein and others essentially saying the same thing.

Hope that helps,

Adam

I'll second the recommendation for "The Now Habit."

It points out clearly what are the supposed "benefits" of procrastination that subconsciously motivate us to put things off. Any book you find will tell you why procrastination is bad, but few of them acknowledge things that we get out of procrastination (no matter how self-defeating they are.)