Learn How to Stop Procrastinating and Achieve Your 91-Day Goals
Learn How to Stop Procrastinating and move forward daily to achieve your 91-Day Goals
Most people procrastinate from time to time. Some people excel at procrastinating and could win an Olympic medal for their abilities. If you fall into the category of “an excellent procrastinator,” then it is time to reverse it. Unless you learn not to put off tasks, you may even read tons of material on 91-day goal setting and then keep saying to yourself, “absolutely, when I get up tomorrow, I am going to spend the whole day goal planning.” And then do it the next day and the day after that.
When you look at a health care professional’s idea of why we procrastinate, the first thing that they mention is, people put off unpleasant tasks because they are uncomfortable about something. While that is true, it is a simplification. People also put off things that are not difficult. It is part of the mindset that has developed over the last 50 years. The world is so hectic, that the little voice in the background whispers to the person, “Hey, you’re tired, there are 150 television channels you could be surfing right now.” The beehive activity that we face on a daily basis, leads us to look for any reason to put off not only difficult tasks but items that may even bring us a bit of pleasure…just not enough pleasure to get us to move.
There are more extreme reasons for procrastinating. People who suffer from anxiety or a lack of self-confidence will procrastinate in order to avoid painful experiences like believing they will not understand how to complete a task or that they will fail, so why even bother trying. This avoidance needs to fix pronto, in order to move forward in life with a positive attitude and knowing that they deserve to succeed.
Overcoming procrastination will be a habit that needs to build. Hourly, daily and weekly, you will have to put an alert into your brain, to give you a signal when procrastination starts to occur. We will look at ways to overcome this issue and let’s start with the easiest one. It is so simple, it may even sound silly but give it a try. When you mentally tell yourself, “I need to start planning and writing my 91-day goals,” and you immediately think that going for ice cream might help get you in the mood…try a simple suggestion. Tell yourself that you are going to procrastinate right now…on procrastinating. That’s right, you are going to put off procrastinating and maybe you will procrastinate tomorrow. Give it a try and in the meantime, here is a list of other methods:
- The best thing you can do for yourself, is to train your brain to do the complete opposite. You procrastinate, and you do it well. Try this instead. As soon as you wake up, think of the hardest, most unpleasant task you need to do and do it right away. You will get a tremendous blast of energy and training your brain to react in this way will set you on the path to success.
- If the method above is just too shocking for you to even try, then go for this method. Wake up, pick a task and do it for 3-5 minutes. Need to make calls? Then pick up the phone and blast them out. Reward yourself with a hot cup of coffee and do another round of 3-5 minutes. Have long hot massaging shower and yes, do another 3-5 minutes. The next day go for 5-10 minutes, doing your calls or whatever you picked. Perhaps it was writing, and you just keep putting it off. In some Kindle writing groups, they call this method, “sprinting.” They blast out words for 20 minutes straight, then have a reward and blast away again and they tell each other in the group that they are in the sprint…going as fast as they can.
- Your mind can take anything and make it seem bigger than it is. Have you heard a noise in your house and then you start thinking about it? You wonder if it’s the wind, or something about to break down. Suddenly you jump to the idea that it might be a robber or worse, attempting to get into house. You take a simple noise and blow it up it to full blown disaster. Procrastination can be similar in that you think about a task and suddenly it becomes a monster. It will eat you alive, so it is better to turn on Netflix and tomorrow, well tomorrow it will seem easier because you are going to relax all day and you will be so rested tomorrow. Tomorrow you will slay that dragon. Stop blowing tasks up into mythical proportions. One step at a time and get it done.
The Power of Quarterly Planning
Focusing on 91 Days At a Time will Change Your LIFE and 4X Your Results!!!
For maximum productivity or to achieve anything in life, you must start with an optimal plan. The best way to accomplish this type of success is through quarterly planning. Quarterly planning requires understanding your key performance indicators, objective and critical results for each 91-day or three-month period.
It takes the entire year and divides it into four critical periods to outline and streamline your focus for increased productivity. Instead of focusing on one big overwhelming goal, you can now break it down into more realistic, measurable, specific, and relevant action steps.
The following are the top reasons why you should add quarterly planning to your business routine and why It’s so powerful:
Provides A Sense of Urgency and Clear Deadline
Studies show that when you permit yourself to use a certain amount of time for something, you will likely use it all no matter if you really need all that time or not. Similarly, the concept of lifestyle creep fits here as your discretionary income increases your attitude for your wants and needs change.
Making you want more and more money and never feel like you have enough. In business school, you learn that you will always spend 80% of it as you change your needs and wants no matter how much you earn to fit your income.
Therefore, if you know you can complete a specific task within fifteen minutes, don’t give yourself a full hour to complete it. Only plan an additional fifteen minutes to ensure you use those other thirty minutes wisely instead of taking your time when you know you can do the work more efficiently.
You Win and Achieve More
With quarterly planning, you have the chance to celebrate your success more as you have more goals to accomplish now, vs. the one annual goal mindset.
For example, instead of saying, “In 2021, I wish to increase my revenue by 25%,” your mindset is now “For the next 90 days, this is what I plan to do to increase my revenue by 25%,” Giving you the focus, determination, and other resources you need to accomplish your goal four times faster. While it’s a worthy goal for the year, a simple change in mindset can easily quadruple your results instead.
Allows You To Better Control The Unexpected
In life, there is only one certain thing, and that thing is change. Something will change in your life, whether it be right this minute, which it did, or ten years from now. Each day you are learning and growing and becoming a different and better version of yourself. The presence of change will certainly show you just how much control constant change holds over your life.
However, quarterly planning is the reins that allow you to keep the course and the direction you want no matter what change throws at you. It is easier to adjust a 91-day outlook than it is to change a 365-day plan. Imagine if you took the time to plan a new project for the whole year only for it to be derailed by one missed goal — creating a spiraling effect that leads to low self-confidence and burnout.
Important for Relevancy and Business Competition
When you plan every three months, you provide your business with a better opportunity to stay relevant. It allows you the time you need to review your business objectives and to be sure that nothing in your genre has changed.
If you think your business will never change, expect to get behind just like Blockbuster did regarding the invention of streaming television shows and movies. If only they took the extra time to get on the new trend before everyone else, they may still be the powerhouse of movies they once were.
Improves Overall Performance and Confidence
Quarterly planning requires you to outline metrics that keep you more accountable and on track. This ensures sustainable and measurable growth that supports your vision, making it clear and more attainable. With measures like this, your confidence and performance will improve as you accomplish more than you have ever done before.
Stop overplanning and wasting your time with annual plans that don’t make sense and are overwhelming. Quarterly planning is precisely the strategy you need to stay consistent, relevant, and ahead of your competition to gain the success you need and want while saving you time and energy. It’s the balance you need to ensure your output is always greater than your input.