Contact Karin:
201-484-0263
info@dailymastery.com
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In this issue:
Is It Procrastination, or Is It Perfectionism?
Article: Procrastination or Perfectionism?
What Can Daily Mastery do for you?
Daily
Mastery offers a set of simple, easy, and proven systems, tools,
techniques and strategies that allow you to reclaim time, dramatically
increase your productivity and experience calm serenity.
While many people come to Daily Mastery because they experience chaos in their lives, even well-organized people can benefit.
This year, would you like to:
* Go from 60- to 40-hour work weeks while maintaining or even increasing your income?
* Be able to walk away from your work or daily life with no notice, and come back to it when you choose, with barely any catch-up to do?
* Double the time you spend with your family or practicing a hobby you love?
These
results and more are possible. We know because these are just some of
the ACTUAL results many of my clients have achieved!
You
don't have to wait for an emergency to inspire you! Call or email me to
set up a F*R*E*E 20 minute chat so we can get the incredibly easy Daily
Mastery techniques to work for you too!
Learn more about:
Daily Mastery
Karin
Vibe-Rheymer-Stewart
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Hoboken, June 2, 2008
Dear Friends,
I
have a confession to make: for a very long time, I thought I was a
chronic procrastinator, and it's a testimonial to my time management
and organizing skills that I still finished everything I needed to do,
and on time. But even if the world didn't see it, I knew I was
procrastinating, and I didn't like it. When I finally decided to tackle
the issue and get rid of it once and for all, I was in for a surprise!
Do you feel that you procrastinate often? It might not be what you
think... Read the article below to find what I really was suffering
from, and how I got rid of it. And if you have any personal techniques
you have used to become reasonably perfectionist, please share them
with me, I'll feature them (with credit of course) in a future
newsletter.
Yours in Daily Mastery,
Karin
PS: A big welcome
to all the readers who joined us since the last issue. You'll love the
resouces and tips you'll find here to help you be peacefully
productive... Enjoy!
Article
Procrastination, or Perfectionism? |
For a very long time, I thought I was a chronic procrastinator.
I kept putting things off, and then doing a slap-dash job at doing them
and completing what I needed to do. The only thing that saved me were
my time management and organizing skills, which allowed me to give the
impression that I was on top of everything, planing, ready, etc.
If only the people around me knew... The picture behind the curtain wasn't pretty.
When I decided to eliminate my procrastination once and for all, I had a big surprise: my procrastination wasn’t really procrastination at all. It was perfectionism.
We see a perfectionist as the person who works on their project forever, is never satisfied,
always wants to do a little more, improve a little more; someone who
drives the people around them crazy with their attention to the
smallest details, which, they insist, have to be as perfect as
everything else.
There is however another manifestation of procrastination,
the one I was suffering from, and that translates into delaying, or not
even starting: since I knew from the get-go that I wouldn’t be
able to do things perfectly, that anything less than perfect
wouldn’t be good enough (and even perfect would be just
adequate), why start in the first place? Why put a lot of effort in
something that I knew wouldn’t measure up to my standards? The
result is that I started working on projects fairly late, and put only
the minimum effort into them.
The first step to eliminate this problem was to realize that my procrastination wasn’t procrastination at all.
You can usually make the difference between the two by listening to
your inner dialogue. If it says statements such as “I have all
the time, I can start later,” or “I just don’t want
to do this right now,” you have a classic case of
procrastination. However, if your inner critic says things like
“I won’t do it right anyway, so why bother,” “I
can’t do this right” etc. you have a case of perfectionism
hiding as procrastination.
Once you know what is really going on, you can do the same things I did:
- Post the following quote on your computer, desk, and wherever you can see it: “I am very careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.” Michael J. Fox. It helped me tremendously to keep perspective, and it also helped many of my clients.
- Use the 80/20 rule:
80% of your result will come from 20% of your effort. In other words,
the other 20% between quite good and perfect will take you the other
80% of your effort. So I kept a post-it note with “80/20”
on it, put a timer and every time the timer rang, asked myself if I was
in the 80% or in the 20% of results, and if the extra work was worth my
time. Again, this is a tool that my clients use to great effect as
well.
- Address the underlying anxiety:
perfectionism is a symptom of anxiety, so the underlying feelings have
to be addressed as well. One way that worked very well for me, and has
worked very well for my clients too, is to use therapeutic-grade
essential oils to influence the underlying emotions and turn them into
positive ones. The essential oil combination that worked best for me
are Peace & Calming, Valor, Present Time and Hope, but other ones may resonate more with you.
With
this, you have great tools to turn your perfectionist's procrastination
around and start being productive - and much happier, since you won't
suffer from the guilt and shame so many of my clients - and myself -
suffered from.
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