How To Overcome Procrastination – Part 1

This is part 1 of a 5-part series on How to Overcome Procrastination.

Leaving things to the last minute. Does this sight look familiar to you?

Is there something you are procrastinating in your life now? What is it? Is it surrounding your work? Your relationship? Your family? Your health? What is the one thing which you should be working on in your life, but you are putting off for some reason or other?

Why Overcome Procrastination?

Some may not see procrastination as a real problem, because they receive benefits from procrastinating on something. For example, the relief you get when you successfully avoid something you don't want to do. However, while these 'benefits' give you the impression you are in a better place, you aren't. It's just an illusion.
Let's say it is Monday now and you have an important report you need to finish by Friday morning (a 20% high value task). This report is one of the most important tasks on your work list, but you decide to put off on it due to the large amount of research and analysis needed. Rather than work on it, you spend the next 3 days shuffling between the less important 80% tasks.
Then, Thursday arrives and you are trapped - you have to work on the report or it's going to jeopardize your job. As you work on it, you find yourself in a hot soup, because there are so many things to be done. After all, that's the very reason you put it off initially! In a last bid attempt to meet the deadline, you pull an all-nighter to do the report. After painfully sloughing through the night, you finally manage to finish it at 4am and meet the Friday deadline.
So net, the task gets done, it's submitted in time, and everything turned out fine.
Did you realize what just happened here? The fact that everything turned out fine led to your subconscious belief that procrastinating on the task didn't bring in any negative effects. In fact, as far as you are aware of, it has a series of supposed benefits:

1. Leaving it to the last minute creates a high sense of urgency which appears to boost your productivity, giving you a higher value on time spent working.
2. You experience short-term gratification from not having to deal with the report on Mon-Wed.
3. Procrastinating didn't jeopardize anything in reality.

Yet, if you look at it holistically, procrastination has created downsides which may not be immediately noticeable:

1. Your time in Mon-Wed was not effectively spent. Ideally, you would want to spend your time in proportion to how important the task is. The more important a task, the more time you want to allocate to it to maximize the output on the task. Spending more time on less important work doesn't give you significantly increased value, compared to spending more time on more important work. A ratio I use is 80-20 for the high value-low value tasks (aka my 20/80 to-do list - Read Day 8 of Live a Better Life in 30 Days Program on 20/80 To-Do Lists).
2. Unnecessary anguish and anxiety experienced (whether subconsciously or consciously) trying to avoid the task. The more you prolong the task, the more unnecessary anxiety you experience, compared to if you dealt with the task head-first. In addition, the continuous avoidance leads you to form a distorted mental image of how intimidating the task is vs. what it actually is. In the end you are left with an exaggerated but baseless fear of what you're supposed to do.
3. More often than not, the final output is short of what you are really capable of, as leaving it to the last minute left you with insufficient time to properly work on it.

The 3 downsides are actually corresponding counterpoints for the 3 illusionary benefits. If you compare the list and take a holistic view, the downsides far outweigh the supposed benefits of procrastination. Not only are you being less productive, you experience unnecessary anxiety, and you deliver an output that falls short of what you can really do. Procrastination leaves you in a worse position, compared to if you didn't procrastinate. As I've written before in What Are You Running Away From?, avoidance isn't going to bring you nearer to what you want.
Thus, if you are a procrastinator, whether chronic or not, it's time to start resolving this issue of procrastination and stop deferring your life away. As long as you keep putting off what you should be doing, you are putting off living. That's no better than being a sleepwalker.
Continue reading part 2, where I will share why mainstream ways of dealing with procrastination don't work and share the two root causes of procrastination.  article from Celes

5 Things That Happen If You Quit Sugar For Life

First, let’s set the record straight by saying that sugar in and of itself isn’t evil, per se. It occurs naturally in plenty of foods, including fruits and milk. With that being said, adding excess sugar to your dietary intake simply isn’t necessary. In fact, you’ll notice numerous positive things happen when you decide to quit sugar for life.
Although people living in the Western world have been trained to desire sugary treats, as well as foods that include copious amounts of sugar for flavoring, we certainly don’t need it. If you stop eating anything but naturally occurring sugars, you’ll notice that 5 very distinctive things will happen.

1. Your Energy Will Improve

Ironically, many of us have a tendency to reach for sugar-filled items, including so-called energy drinks and caffeinated beverages, when we’re tired. Yet without all the sugar, we’re guaranteed to have a higher energy level naturally. In other words, all that sugar is blocking our body’s ability to keep our energy stores at maximal levels. Plus, there will be no up-and-down with your blood sugar, so afternoon crashes will become an experience of the past.

2. Your Weight Will Stabilize

Sugar makes you crave more sugar, and we’re not just talking about sugar in its raw form. Let’s face it: most sugar comes in high-fat and/or high-carb foods that have been processed or at least contain tons of unwanted ingredients. There is, of course, the exception of fruit, which are nearly all sugar.
By going on a sugar detox, your body will not be subjected to the need to deal with all those additional calories. You won’t feel hungry, and you’ll end up losing weight – or at least not seeing the scale fluctuate as dramatically.

3. Your Intestines and Colon Will Perform More Efficiently

If your insides could tell you what they wanted on a daily basis, they would say lots of fiber and a minimum amount of tough-to-digest, impure foods. When you remove sugar, you’re enabling your tummy and bowels to reset their abilities to process what you’ve eaten. You may even find that you go to the bathroom more often … this is a good thing. It means everything is getting back to a normal routine.

4. You’ll Stop Wanting Sugar

It’s a fact: sugar begets sugar. After you rid it from your food regimen, you’ll slowly begin to lose the desire to eat anything with sugar in it. Fruits will taste plenty sweet, and if you do take a bite of a cake or pie, you’ll be shocked at how overpowering and overly sweet it seems.

5. Your Skin Will Look Healthier

Have you noticed that you can’t seem to crack the case on why your acne appears and disappears despite all the creams, potions, and ointments you’re using? It may be that sugar is hurting your skin from the inside out. Many people report that their skin feels and looks healthier after they stop giving in to sugar’s pull.

Ready to Start Your Sugar Detox and Quit Sugar for Life?

While a cold turkey approach to your sugar detox isn’t always recommended, especially if you’ve been a sugar-holic for most of your lifetime, it’s definitely a good idea to start cutting back now. The faster you begin, the faster you’ll start to reap the advantages of going sugar-free.
In fact, in light of the countless dangers of consuming too much sugar, the World Health Organization has changed its sugar recommendation—advising no more than 5% of your daily calories should come from the sweet stuff, down from the previously recommended 10 percent. Considering the average American consumes close to 5 grams each day, we have some work to do.

Start small by evaluating everything you’re eating and drinking. If you are addicted to sugar-laced coffee drinks sold at popular coffeehouses, scale back on how many times you drink them. Then, scale back some more. Soon, omit certain sugar-laden products. Over time, you will physiologically adjust to your new habits.
Remember that it takes about three weeks before a new way of doing something becomes a comfortable routine. If you have slight missteps, such as eating a candy bar after a stressful workday, just keep forging ahead.
The results of your diligence will definitely be worth it.