Procrastination and Stress

Has this ever happened to you? 

You find yourself putting something off and initially you feel elated, maybe even euphoric. You don’t have to deal with a situation or task at this moment in time. Whew! But, for most of these situations, there will come a time when it needs to get done. The feeling of elation turns to panic. Then panic becomes a rush to figure out ways to handle the situation. 

When you compare this to people who don’t procrastinate, they may not get that initial surge of elation. However, they also don’t have to worry about the panic setting in. All things being equal, these non-procrastinators will not be as stressed out.

It’s proven that stress can lead to disease. The resources that your body needs to fend off disease will be diverted to handling your stress. Short-term stress is not likely to impact health as much as stress that is constant. However, people who procrastinate do it with all (or most of) their tasks. Therefore, they are likely to be stressed out longer term. They are the ones more at risk of getting stress related disorders.

Procrastination can often impact others in the procrastinator’s social circle as well. For instance, your kids may be depending on you to fill out a form for them to go to away camp. If you miss the deadline, your kids won’t be able to go to camp. Most kids will not be happy with this outcome and will question whether they can trust you.

If you don’t learn to overcome procrastination at work, it could impact others in the organization. For example, if you are responsible for a certain aspect of a project and miss the deadline, it may cause others on the team to miss their deadlines. Be aware they'll know you're the bottleneck. This puts you in an awkward position that could eventually lead to your dismissal.

Procrastination can cause you some financial pain. You may wait to the last minute to file your taxes. But, when you do so, you may not find the necessary information needed to reduce your tax liabilities. You could end up paying more than if you had taken the time to look for all your legitimate deductions, etc.

Moral of the story? Procrastination leads to stress. Stress leads to illness. Illness can lead to death. Don't die early! 

3 Bad Habits to Eliminate When You Work From Home

It sounds like a dream lifestyle. No endless commute. No nagging supervisor. And every day is casual Friday. But ask any work-at-home entrepreneur and they’ll tell you that it’s also super easy to pick up a lot of bad habits. Unless you take steps to avoid them, these pitfalls can leave you disenchanted with your career choice.

1. Taking on too much – When you first begin to work from home it might be easy to say yes to every gig that comes your way. You want and need the money and are willing to work extra hours even for the jobs you don’t really want. This could be a hard habit to break, but until you get it under control, you’ll be stressed and burned out. Instead, focus on what type of client you really want and what type of work comes with each client. 

Determine the services you really want to offer and make it clear that you won’t step outside those boundaries. You might already have enough on your plate taking care of the youngsters while working. You don’t need to cause yourself undue frustration.

2. Bad Sleep Patterns – You might try to say that it makes sense to work at all hours of the night while everyone else is sleeping. You can get a ton of work done that way with no distractions. However, you are preventing yourself from getting a good night’s sleep and this will eventually catch up with you. I’ve done this myself and it WILL catch up to you.

Developing and maintaining a decent sleep schedule makes a world of difference when it comes to productivity and motivation during the day. If you feel the need to get things done after everyone else is sleeping, be sure you monitor how long you work. Don’t fall into the habit of staying up until the wee hours just to feel productive.

3. Procrastination – When you work from home it’s easy to fall into the habit of putting certain things off until later. Discipline and self-motivation are two important qualities that anyone who works from home must have. If you don’t, you may talk yourself into starting tomorrow on almost everything, including work that will bring in some good income for you and your family. It’s easy to say “I’ll do it later,” but it’s detrimental to your business and your overall success.

It’s important to develop good habits right from the start. Having control over your income is something we all want, but also a huge responsibility and it takes a lot of dedication to make the business work. Developing bad habits will not only hamper your success, but it will also create unnecessary frustration. And who needs more frustration?

If there’s one thing that can make or break a business it’s the sheer will and determination of the person running it. Avoiding bad habits from the start will give you that extra push you need to succeed.

When doing anything during your day, ask yourself, "Is what I'm doing right now an income-producing activity?"

Hope this helps!