Procrastination

February 13, 2012

Interview with Rory Vaden, author of the book Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success [1]

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Mike Carruthers:
Procrastination you know what it is but actually there are 2 types.

Rory Vaden:
Most of us think about procrastination, we think of classic procrastination which we define as consciously delaying what we know we should be doing.
 

Rory Vaden, author of the book Take the Stairs [1]...

So I have a stack of bills at home on kitchen counter, I come home from work, I know I should be paying them and yet I choose consciously to say, “No, I don’t feel like it.” But there is a new much more pervasive form of procrastination that we call creative avoidance. And creative avoidance is unconsciously delaying and allowing our attention to shift to less important tasks to where we can get busy just being busy.

In other words we never quite get around to the important things because we busy ourselves with the little things.

And one of the key insights that we learned is just understanding that until you accomplish the 2 or 3 most important things on your to do list for the day – everything else is a distraction.

Rory has some strategy that if you stick to it can dramatically improve your productivity.

Come in everyday with 2 things that no matter what these are going to get done, these 2 calls have to happen. And approach it with the idea of just understanding that everything else is a distraction until that is checked off. You learn to ignore the same stuff for a while so you can work on the big stuff.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here.  [2]