Slaying the Procrastination Monster

Last week, I seemed to have touched a nerve by connecting poor recruiting performance and procrastination.While pointing out a problem is helpful, providing a solution is more difficult.According to author Piers Steel, a viable solution to procrastination must address all four of the following components:Expectancy: your assessment on the likelihood of successfully completing a task. Value: how much enjoyment you’re going to experience when the task is complete. Delay: you tend to naturally value rewards that can be realized quickly more than rewards that require waiting. Impulsiveness: the combination of low conscientiousness, low self-control, and high distractibility.The components of procrastination relate to each other via the following equation:Your Tendency to Overcome Procrastination = (Expectancy x Value) / (Delay x Impulsiveness)Take a minute to think through this equation in terms of recruiting.If you’re frequently putting off the recruiting tasks, the reason lies in how these components relate to each other.And your path for defeating procrastination lies in diagnosing how this equation is controlling your actions.Attempting to slay the procrastination monster with swift, decisive action never works.Instead, it must be slowly deprived of its air supply through small actions and mindset changes.