Procrastinating, do you procrastinate? If you do, congratulations! You have just proven that you are human. Everyone procrastinates and that is okay, to a certain extent. It is a matter of how long we procrastinate and on which things.

Do we wait until things are urgent rather than focus on important items? Both, procrastination and urgent versus important jobs, strongly relate to organising. Decluttering and organising, are most often, not urgent things. I mean take the washing as an example, it can lay there for weeks, and it is not complaining. It is however relatively important to stay on top of it because eventually we end up with either no clean clothes or 3 days of washing to do. If we end up with the last scenario, then we want to postpone and procrastinate even more as the job has simply become too big, to do it in one hit.

How can we conquer procrastination in regard to organising?

Well, there are two main things that can really help. One is to have a reward, this means you can pick something you like as a reward for a task that you prefer to avoid. This reward could be a cup of coffee, a chapter in a book, or ten minutes flicking through a magazine. We will get our reward if we complete a task, that needs doing say folding clothes. We also need to keep in mind that the task has to be specific and the reward needs to be in line with the effort required for the task. Don’t say one coffee is a reward for 3 baskets of laundry because you won’t start.

Beat organising procrastination 15 minutes at a time

I think for the beginning ‘declutterer’ or organiser setting a task for 15 minutes is good. So 15 minutes of folding gets you, your little reward. You can later do another 15 minutes of laundry just before lunch or dinner in the evening. What happens in this instance is, you get a quick reward and start to build a positive event around a job you don’t like doing. In psychology this is called positive reinforcement, if we associate something with a positive outcome we are much more likely to engage in the same behaviour again. Have a try this week. Start with a small, clear, and time-specific chore, followed by a reward. You’ll be amazed at what you achieve and how much you enjoy your well-deserved reward.