The Queen of Procrastination is dead

I have been struggling with procrastination for the past few years. Getting stuff done has become an obstacle to me. But according to my strengths finder I am an activator, which has been baffling to me. Ideation is also one of my strengths. I have great ideas but I have trouble following through on them. I am working on multiple projects in my personal life that could greatly enhance my life if I only finished them, but I haven't and rarely work on them. At work, I am a little better, because there are deadlines and pressure from other people. I don't know if it's Twitter's fault but my attention span is shorter than 140 characters. In meetings that last more than 30 minutes my mind starts to wander. I get pinged on 50 different 'apps' every day (Facebook, Twitter, Outlook, Office Communicator, text, kik, whats app, Yahoo mail, Gmail.... the list goes on) so I guess it is no wonder I can't focus on one thing more than 3 seconds.

So today, and I don't know where this thought came from or what inspired me to try this, I made a list of all the things I need to get done today and the set a timer for 15 minutes and started on the top of the list. 

A few examples of tasks that can be completed in 15 minute intervals that are on my list:

- Dishes/clean kitchen

- Sort closet

- Edit book

- Catch up on e-mail

I have been working the list of about 20 items total since then and I have gotten more done than I probably have this entire past weekend in just the past two hours. You would be surprised how much you can get done in 15 minutes. And if you are also competitive like me, you're going to try to get as much done or finish a task completely in those 15 minutes. This blog post is one of the items on my list. I have 1 minutes and 30 seconds left.

Try it. Let me know how it works for you. If I can keep this up, this will truly be a life changer for me.