We all know the feeling when we just can't bring ourselves to start some task. In those situations most of us are very good at finding "valid" excuses for not starting, like checking your email or Facebook account one more time, checking quickly what's on television, or going to have something to eat. This is procrastination at its best and is not good for you time management.

The reasons for procrastination are often unconscious. They include perfectionism, distractions, fear of failure, and fear of success. In addition there exists a number of other reasons too, as we are all different. Successful procrastinators also often suffer from a combination of causes. Therefore, I think it is more valuable to focus on the solutions, at which we will take a glimpse on below.

There are basically two ways in which you can manage procrastination: either by using fast solutions or by taking some basic preventive measures. Preventive measures are choices you can make, so that you are less likely to find yourself in typical procrastinating situations. This article focuses on fast solutions.

The first fast solution we will discuss is lowering your own demands. The second one is restricting the time you work on a task.

Lowering our own demands is something worth thinking about every now and then. This is true especially if you catch yourself imagining that the outcome of your work should always be something exclusively superb. Well, guess what? In most cases it does not have to be.

There is an old saying "What is worth doing, is worth doing well". Yes, I agree. However, I think that the saying is missing one word: Enough [as in well enough]. What I mean is that we can all choose the battle grounds where we put in our 110% effort, re-reading and reformulating, and thinking about the content. In many cases, however, that is not expected from the party waiting for your work... your boss, the client of whoever. In stead, they will get annoyed if you, possibly once again, fail to meet a deadline. It is also good to dig up the old definition on quality. The one I subscribe to, is that quality is "conforming to specifications". You can choose which specifications you want to live up to. In different times, you can use different specifications, i.e. quality levels.

The second trick in the sleeve is to work only for a fixed period of time. This is one of the tips suggested by Dr. Neil Fiore in his famous book "The Now Habit". Using this method you should always decide, before you start, that you will now work for only 20 minutes (you can choose between 10-40 minutes). After working for that time you will be free to take a break.

This trick works. The secret is that when you know that you are only allowed to work for let's say 20 minutes, you are not so tied up and burdened by the task. Just compare it to a mindset of "now I will sit down, and I am not allowed to stop working before I am completely ready". The difference is significant. The latter way of thinking, combined with an unpleasant task, is almost guaranteed to keep you watching television. The scenario could then be like this: after procrastinating for 3 hours, in the last moments before the deadline, due to panic, you lower your demands (our first tip in this article and do the whole thing in forty minutes. And the funniest thing is, that often the outcome of this kind of working is often good enough. You could have just as well taken the first 20 minutes a lot earlier, without pressure. Then, once on a roll, you could have taken a second set after a short pause.

If you are a perfectionist, don't always be. I will discuss preventive solutions in a separate article. Mastering a few fast solutions like the ones above, together with some preventive measures, could potentially help you a lot at managing time.