All professions are busy, but financial advisors are known for having a seemingly endless to do list. The challenges of practice management are many, and advisors often work long hours with little to no breaks to get things done. Sometimes that means lower priority tasks fall through the cracks. Here are four tips for managing procrastination tendencies.
Gamify the Non-Urgent Stuff
Anything that can be put off until later will be put off until later. But even non-urgent tasks come with hidden urgency. Booking a hotel or flight is always cheaper today than it will be tomorrow, for example.
One way to help motivate yourself to accomplish the essential but less urgent tasks is to attach a reward to their completion. Accordingly, gamifying the process can give you motivation. Have a list of 10 administrative tasks? Give yourself a reward when you get through five of them. Then another when you get through all 10. These rewards can be as simple as an extra cup of coffee. You don’t have to be indulgent; even small rewards can keep the task in focus.
20 Minutes On, 5 Minutes Off
Administrative or banal tasks are easy to put aside. The temptation to squeeze in more prep for the big meeting can be overpowering. This causes minor tasks to fall by the wayside.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is set aside a chunk of time to move forward the non-glamorous stuff and just stick to it. Setting a timer for 20 minutes and then giving yourself a five-minute break and then repeating the process can be an effective way to do the stuff that’s annoying. Twenty minutes isn’t much time, and in small chunks, you can make a lot of progress.
Be Kind to Yourself
One of the best things you can do to beat procrastination is to not beat yourself up about it. We’ve all had moments where we are a little late in responding to an email or have kept putting aside scheduling our next dental check-up. Plus, many of us have literal brain conditions that can make us prone to procrastination. Having ADHD notoriously makes people bad at cleaning their homes, for example (and then, at times, extremely good at cleaning their homes.)
Cut yourself some slack for past transgressions and salve the anxiety by choosing to get done the thing you are putting off today.
The Procrastination 'Under 5's'
In film and TV, some actors have less than five lines on camera. Accordingly, these are called “under fives.” Usually they are quick scenes that help move the plot from one beat to the next. For the purposes of defeating procrastination, an “under five” is a task that takes less than five minutes, such as registering for an upcoming conference.
Starting your day with a few under-fives can help propel you to getting more done. Few things feel better than a to-do list that is a few items shorter less than 10 minutes into your work day.
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