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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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The Procrastination Cure summary
Jeffery Combs
7 Steps to Stop Putting Life Off
16 mins
Brief summary
The Procrastination Cure by Jeffery Combs explores the root causes of procrastination and provides practical steps to overcome it. It offers insightful methods on how to take action and achieve our goals.
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The Procrastination Cure
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Procrastination and Its Toll
What’s the longest you’ve ever spent procrastinating something? A few days? Weeks? The author once coached a client who had put off filing her taxes… for fifteen years!
While this may be extreme, it’s not without precedent. Every year, people pay millions in excess taxes for procrastination-related reasons; getting penalized for filing late or making expensive mistakes while in a time crunch. Experts estimate that 40 percent of Americans have suffered needless financial setbacks due to procrastination.
But it’s about much more than your bank account.
Consider our 15-year tax-avoider. What was going on there? It all stemmed from fear. Her initial procrastination started with some anxiety or discomfort, which escalated into dread as the potential consequences loomed larger and larger. A vicious spiral of fear, winding slowly upwards until, by the time she sought the author’s help, she was so afraid she couldn’t sleep at night!
This is perhaps the greatest toll procrastination takes. The loss of happiness and well-being.
So, why do people do it? What is procrastination, anyway?
It’s not the same as delaying a task. After all, we sometimes delay a task for perfectly good reasons: you can’t do everything at once. Procrastination is a particular kind of delay – it’s putting something off even after you know it’s time to start.
Procrastination is related to indecisiveness, but it’s not exactly the same. Indecision is struggling to make up your mind, while procrastination is when you’ve made up your mind, but still somehow fail to take action.
Psychologists Albert Ellis and William Knaus have their own definition – procrastination is when you delay performing a task up to the point where you start to experience discomfort or bad feelings.
This rings true. And yet – paradoxically – we procrastinate out of a vain effort to avoid discomfort. Something feels stressful, painful, or uncomfortable; and so we come up with a reason to do something – anything – else until, eventually, we start to feel discomfort about the avoidance.
As we’ll see, curing procrastination is less about managing your time and more about managing your emotions. A big step is getting clear about which emotions are driving us.
We each have unique life histories and experiences that inform our behaviors. But – lucky for us – the author has coached thousands of people struggling with procrastination, and there are some patterns that come up again and again.
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What is The Procrastination Cure about?
The Procrastination Cure is a practical and motivational guide to overcoming procrastination. It offers strategies and personal insights to diagnose and address the root causes of this behavior, enabling readers to balance productivity and relaxation without guilt.
Who should read The Procrastination Cure?
- Anyone who struggles with procrastination
- People suffering from perfectionism or resistance
- Anyone willing to introspect and develop self-awareness
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