stop procrastinating

I really must recommend “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. It’s the first self-help book (a) that I’ve actually read from cover-to-cover, and (b) that I really plan to put into practice.

I’m usually more cynical than average about self-help books, and very dismissive of the jargon that they generally use, but this book is remarkably free of meaningless jargon. Allen has clearly met people like me before, and I believe his techniques will be very helpful to me. Maybe, for once, all the hype is justified?

Although I’ve made some progress with the dreaded procrastination habit, it’s always nice to have someone else’s input to a problem. Idly surfing the Net, I came across various people raving about “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. This book appears to have been very successful:at least in making lots of money for the nice Mister Allen!

As you can see from the photo, I’ve actually started to read this self-help book, unlike the other one that I bought. We’ll see if it really does revolutionise my life.

Further to my last entry about my appraisal tasks, I’ve just finished the second of the three!

Feeling quite smug now!

Like a lot of other professionals, I have to have an annual appraisal. My first one was in November 2004 and I’ve committed myself to doing three tasks before my next one. In fact, I hadn’t even sorted out the documentation after my appraisal in November last.

This weekend I’ve sorted out the documents and done one of the tasks. I’ve even started on the second task! It’s amazing how little time it actually takes to do these things, yet I’ve been puting them off for months.

Don’t keep thinking about it. Just do it!

I’ve decided to try Ta-da List (http://www.tadalist.com/ ) to see if the gimick of having To Do Lists online makes me more likely to pay attention to them, and actually do the things on the lists!

We’ll see….

I recently discovered a website called 43 Things. The idea of the site is that people can post on it a list of the things they’d like to do, and share their experiences with others trying to achieve the same aims.

My first thing is “Stop procrastinating” which I illustrate with my copy of “The Procrastinator’s Guide To Success”. Unfortunately, you’ve guessed it, I haven’t got around to reading it yet!

Like several of my 277 fellow procrastinators, however, I have read a useful article on the web by Steve Pavlina called “Overcoming Procrastination” (http://www.dexterity.com/articles/overcoming-procrastination.htm ).

So far I’ve only got 5 things on 43 Things, but I think I’ll try to make some progress with those five before adding any more….