I have a pile of expenses to do, most are for the company card but they do owe me some significant cash as well.

The admin process is painful and I can’t bring myself to do it and keep putting it off.

Managed to print the reports off yesterday but they are now staring up at me and I am pissing about on here.

I do this all the time. Any excuse not to do stuff like this.

Has anyone suffered from similar and managed to get over it and become slick and organised?

Any techniques to manage this would be most welcome!

Not sure. I’ll have a think and get back to you.

If you do ever find out how to motivate yourself to do these jobs please let me know.

It’s 6 minutes past 9. I have loads to do, but my direct manager is off today.

It’s looking like tomorrow is going to be a nightmare.

Watch this – Original Thinking

But if you really want to stop procrastination don’t explore that website because you can lose a day in it….

I have the same problem. I considered recently asking if our IT department could block this site, so I couldn’t get on here in the day time.

I’ve tried all sorts – to-do lists, prioritising, sitting in quiet meeting rooms away from the distractions at my desk.

In a previous job, I used to have update meetings every day or two with my boss which helped as he’d ask why things hadn’t moved along if I clearly hadn’t made any progress. It was the constant prod that I needed.
Not that this technique would work with admin type tasks admittedly….

Just make a coffee, stick some headphones on & get it done!!

If I don’t enjoy something, I procrastinate. I don’t think it’s actually possible to change. Just work to your strengths and only do fun stuff.

No idea. I currently have a bloody huge report to write for work. I’m not writing it, I’m messing about on here.

Serious answer. Rewards. Don’t let yourself have a coffee until they’re done. Then make a coffee and go and talk to Beccy in accounts for a bit, using dropping off your expenses as an excuse.

There’s an phone app. Like a hypnosis session. I’ve used the “Sleep” version of it, which was actually very good. “End Procrastination” is the app. For some reason other things have got in the way of me using it 🙂

Get your IT provider to block this site?

…really must get on with some work…

Don’t know about procrastination, but I always reckon that you should never put off until tomorrow anything that you can avoid doing altogether.

I have a pile of expenses to do, most are for the company card but they do owe me some significant cash as well.

It is a work plug (I’m a designer, not a salesman – there is no benefit to me saying this!) but have you/your company looked at Concur? It’s a little fiddley, but it’s a damn sight better than traditional expenses. Assuming you have a smartphone the mobile app makes things a lot simpler.

It helps to do the horrible boring painful jobs first thing in the morning.

I think there’s some awful management-speak phrase to describe this, like “eat the live frog for breakfast” or some such guff.

(And if you’re still doing awful spreadsheet-based expenses then get something cloud-based, where you can just take a picture of the receipt with your phone and have it OCR’d and uploaded automagically).

“End Procrastination” is the app. For some reason other things have got in the way of me using it

I’d look for it, but I really can’t be bothered.

This guy lays out a good summary of procrastination. Condenses into a webpage what people woul fill a book with [Some NSFW language].

Screw motivation, what you need is discipline.

Get your IT provider to block this site?

wah!? Burn him!

Install something like leechblock.

stay away from STW??

I apply logic. If I’m up and about and thinking about a task then I’m more set up to get it done than if I’m on the sofa later on lazy and tired. Therefore it makes more sense, and will be less effort, to do it now.

but have you/your company looked at Concur?

We had it. It wasn’t perfect but that was down to some stupid Company requirements, e.g. We weren’t allowed to submit a report if we had open charges on the system, they had to go one report and then be coded to each job line by line. Bloody stupid. It was still a hundred times better than what we have now.

We went through a merger and the whole system changed and we lost it. 🙁

I’ve got an inspection in two months, the paperwork for it probably is a days work writing it, I started a month ago, I have a page filled in so far, it has our name and address on.

In that time I have done many other things, but the report, not so much.

Music on, head down. Be done in no time then its back to

pissing about on here

The techniques are really ver……OOOH LOOK! A squirrel!

You need a Panic Monster!

Procrastination is a convenient term upon which we can put all the blame for not getting things done, complain about it, feel bad, and look for a an easy fix. The problem with that thinking is we’re missing (possibly deliberately) the actual problem, and that is a lack of self discipline. That thinking also perpetuates that procrastination, because it’s a hard thing to resolve. Procrastination is a habit which you are constantly reinforcing.
Discipline is doing something you know is the right thing even if you don’t feel like it. It can be practiced in many small ways, similar to habits.
A good tip is even if you don’t feel like doing something, do something, to reinforce discipline and the habit, I mean any tiny thing (there will be loads when you think about it). Eg. Exercise. Instead of saying ‘nah I don’t feel like it’, get up anyway and do something, anything, say 1 press up perhaps. Chances are you’ll do more. You’re practising detaching the thinking from the action. I use this same approach with exercise as do expenses. The technique is exactly the same, and the results can be pretty amazing.

And what were you supposed to be doing 10 mins ago, barkm?

I’m the world’s best procrastinator.

I just write a detailed to-do list every day (I can be bothered), and cross them off as I go…

seems to work…-ish.

Need to shake off the Instant Gratification Monkey. Something else to read while you’re supposed to be doing something else.

Why Procrastinators Procrastinate

Well I have spent about 4 hours to clear the backlog this afternoon.

9 different reports.

I feel cleansed.

I await the response with interest, how my boss is meant to find time ply through the piles of receipt images I have no idea.

marking thread to read it later…

At a training session once, the organisers tried to sell me a book, “Dealing With Procrastination.” I declined on the grounds that I’d probably never get around to reading it.

Procrastination has taught you how to do 30mins of work in 8h30mins and 8h30mins of work in 30mins!

Why do today what you can put off at least until tomorrow.

Just rewire your thinking to believe
work/chores must be completed before the fun stuff. After several loops of overcoming the inertia it all falls into place.

It can go other way though and you can obsess over completing tasks.

What if you’ve got hornwee?

Well, has anyone achieved any of thier New Years Resolutions yet ?

😆

I think as someone else posted it’s because we dislike the stuff we’re ‘supposed’ to be doing. I put off my last batch of receipts so long we changed financial year (company one) and now I can’t claim – that’s £250 worth of procrastination I could kick myself for. Mostly I procrastinate on design documents, they’re actually 2% interesting (as in you need to use your brain/knowledge) and the other 98% is just filling out tedious tables of config details, drawing crap Visio digrams and padding with waffle so it looks like you at least put some effort in (knowing the fact no one ever bothers to read the doc doesn’t help).

Sorry, I was meaning to answer this yesterday.

BRB