DO NOT let tasks dictate how long they are going to take of your time. In a procrastinator’s mind, tasks will take forever, therefore we don’t want to start them. YOU decide how much time you will put into a task, even if it is not enough time to finish that task…AND STICK TO THE COMMITMENT WHICH YOU HAVE JUST MADE TO YOURSELF. Reward yourself by STICKING TO YOUR COMMITMENT, and FOR NOT ALLOWING a task to take up all of your mental and physical energy.
Perform a task as if you are playing speed chess. Set your smart phone’s timer to go off at funky intervals: 96 seconds or 1080 seconds; intervals which don’t give you a sense of when to expect the alarm.
Anxious, depressed, ADHD, and perfectionistic people tend to have an altered sense of estimating how long a task will take and an altered sense of how much time has passed.
Charles Tadros, M.D.
November 20, 2021
Saint Louis, Missouri