The Power of Procrastination: 3 Things To Know

We talked about stress in our last blog, now it is time to talk about procrastination in the work place, as this can lead to stress and have a big impact on you and how work gets done.

It can be all overwhelming, and when you procrastinate, you get off track and lose focus. Procrastination happens because we would rather not deal with what needs to get done. Except for the fact that the situation nor the customer is going away, it will still be there waiting for you….and you know it because it will be on your mind taking up valuable space and affecting the other things you need to accomplish. With the many difficult situations that customer service employees face on daily basis, procrastination can silently creep up, and that breeds stress!

I was introduced to Brian Tracy years ago, who is a motivational public speaker and self-development author. One of his books, Eat that Frog is about procrastination. It was something that I used immediately once I understood the principle. One of Brian’s famous quotes is “If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first."

So, what does this quote mean? It means if you don’t tackle the biggest and hardest task or situation on your plate first thing during the day, it will become a distraction to you. If you don’t eat that frog…those frogs are going to multiple and then all the sudden you have a desk full of frogs!

Hypothetical of course, but I always used that visualization to keep me focused on handling the not so fun situations, or large projects, stressful calls and those time-consuming reports that I needed to do. This ultimately helped me from procrastinating and wasting valuable time. Procrastination is very powerful and can have an enormous impact on you, your department, and the customer. You see, if you handled that big task or “ugly” situation first, it goes away, and you are not wasting energy thinking about that one thing you are dreading AND your service delivery doesn’t suffer!

3 Things To Do To Avoid Procrastination:

Tackle those “frogs” ASAP!
Stay organized and create a to-do list: this helps to navigate and track what you need to accomplish, while moving less urgent items down on your list