23 Anti-Procrastination Habits: How to Stop Being Lazy and Get Results in Your Life

I can't give this a full review, as I haven't really started reading it yet. Therein lies part of my problem. I've been procrastinating reading a book about how to stop procrastinating. But it's a new year, and correcting this is one of my resolutions.Some of the advice in the book we've all heard before, but some of it is valuable. Why do we procrastinate? Sometimes it's because the task seems too overwhelming. This guide tells you some ways to overcome that. For example, break a large chore into smaller tasks. Many of us have tried this, at least mentally. But have you ever written these small steps down? Most of us haven't.Here's an example. I've been needing to clean out my garage all year. I never started because I just don't want to devote a full day on a weekend. I'll get to it sometime, I tell myself. Maybe when it's warmer. After reading this, here's what I tried. Write down all the little tasks, and assign times to them. Like...Gather some trash bags (2 minutes)Pull out all 10-12 storage totes, open them (3 mins)Anything in them I don't need? Put in trash bag (5 mins)Condense all totes, making about five empty ones (10 mins)Gather random extension cords (garden hoses, etc) (5 mins)Put like items together, put in empty totes (10 mins)Label the totes with masking tape and a marker (5 mins)...Screw hooks into the walls to hang up bicycles (20 mins)Sweep (5 mins)Haul trash bags to curb (3 mins)So I spent five minutes actually writing down these simple tasks. Then I added up the estimated times. Wow, I should be able to get my garage cleaned out in less than an hour!The trick is to just get started. Tell yourself that you can stop anytime. If you only get the first two items on your list done, oh well, you've only spent five minutes and that's more than you've done all year. But chances are, after you start, your momentum will kick in and you'll just keep rolling.There's something mentally satisfying about lining through items on a to-do list. And before you know it, you've done the whole list. You've spent an hour or so, and your garage looks 100% better than it did just 60 short minutes ago.And if you're creative, you can apply this method to almost any chore. This is just one of the methods in the book. Pretty soon I'm going to read the rest of it. And maybe in a few months I'll get my basement cleaned up as well.Overall, this is a pretty simple book but I'm glad I bought it.

For a quick read with some good tips. This book gives basic info on different techniques and steps to stop procrastination.

With the New Year come new habits. One of the bad habits that I am trying to break is procrastination. I am the classic “start a project and not see it to completion” kind of person. I want to change the way I handle projects and tasks in my everyday life. When I saw the title, 23 Anti-Procrastination Habits: How to Stop Being Lazy and Get Results in Your Life, I got excited. I thought this book might provide me some solutions on how to drag myself out of the muck and mire and actually finish some important projects in 2014. I was not disappointed by the content of this read. S.J. Scott provides a concise list of ways to break out of the procrastination habit and to increase your performance in everyday tasks. For example, one of his suggestions is to capture every idea that comes into your head, whether it is with an old-fashioned notebook and pen or on your latest and greatest digital device. The idea is that you become paralyzed when ideas are swimming around in their brain because you don’t know what idea to act on first. This way, you write the idea down, file it away for another time, and return to the task at hand. The author also suggests that another reason for procrastination is because we do not know how to complete a particular part of a project. Perhaps, we don’t have the knowledge or the skill set to stay on track. Therefore, he encourages readers to develop a project-based skill in order to progress on schedule with your work. It will take some time to learn the skill, but it can easily translate to other opportunities at work or in your personal life. This idea is one of many that I will be including in my to-do list for 2014. For those, like me, who struggle with getting the job done, this book is a definite must-read. If you can take one or two ideas from this author and implement them into your own life, then the book is worth your time and money.

I've read many excellent books by S.J. Scott - and this is another winner.I can't say that I suffer from *terrible* procrastination, but the truth is, if I have a project I'm not 100% keen about I'll find ways to them it off. Fortunately, there are several of the 23 anti-procrastination habits that I can easily incorporate into my life. Of all, though, my favorite is the Single-Handle Process. That means when something crosses my desk, just do it now instead of putting it aside until a more convenient time. This one good habit keeps me from multitasking, a bad habit that gets me into overwhelm and excessive tiredness.Although Prioritizing is another of the good habits, I've never found it works well for me because I tend to give everything a #1 or A rating. Then I'm stuck trying to figure out which of the #1s is the REAL #1. However, a habit I've used in the past and can really relate to is APH #19: Develop Project-Based Skills. For me this means becoming a good project manager, recognizing what I can or can't do, or what needs to be delegated and what needs my own attention. The Blueprint step that's a part of APH #19 is excellent - it's this level of detail attention that I know will help me immensely. That's because I know a lot of my procrastination is directly related to being in overwhelm with the size of a project.While you may not use every single one of the 23 anti-procrastination habits, I can guarantee you'll find at least a valuable handful that will get your project out of the same step you've been stuck on for weeks. Lastly, I want to commend the author for his reference to the TED talks - I've used them to inspire myself - and I'm thrilled to see them included in this book. TED talks can get you motivated and moving forward like little else.

The author is one of the armies of 'getting organized' proponents - with better organization being touted as the panacea to (in this case) procrastination. The 'habits' described are well described and will quite probably help in specific instances - if the reader decides to implement them - so in principle the book has the potential to be useful.The big if, as mentioned by some other reviewers, is that many of the habits require lots of time and proactivity to implement, qualities that procrastinators do not always have / apply in spades. To top it off, applying all the 23 habits will require so much time that it is questionable to what extent you will save time after all and how much more effective you will become, even if you will stop procrastinating. In that sense the book should be read in conjunction with  A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits Of Disorder  if you are really looking for a balanced treatment of the subject.Implementing the habits selectively may be useful, though - therefore the four stars. It is also very easy to read, well organized and may potentially move the odd reader from the group of procrastinators to become more proactive. A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits Of Disorder

This book is very well written and informative. It is also full of valuable information that is a cut ✂ above the usual type of advice you get from other books 📚 of this genre. My advice is to read through the book and write down a few notes to get the best out of it, and I'm sure that you'll feel like it was well worth your time. I'm now going to check out some of his other books 📚 as I'm sure that they will be just as interesting and informative...

Lots of actionable ways of training myself out of my habit of procrastination - the bane of my life! Still working through it but I know it makes sense and the suggestions for processes to overcome the bad habits are sensible and practical.Steve writes great books - I like his style and they are well-researched and presented.

Bought this book along with Steve Scott's 'How to stop procrastinating'. This book is very similar to the previous, and nothing new between both books.I felt that the 'How to stop procrastinating' had more detail so I've kept that one.A good book in its own right but no point in buying along with 'How to stop procrastinating' as too similar

Very practical read, Very easy to applicable. Speaks to you "straight from the hip" - especially understanding the 80/20 rule, which I have heard before but highlighted some things to me. Looking forward to completing it.