After speaking with my son's teacher last week I decided to really research task avoidance and how to overcome it. As per the Task Management Guide, Task Avoidance is a counter-productive behavior which can be recognized in all spheres of life, including education, business, household, etc. The sense of this problematic behavior is that people consider some tasks as aversive (boring, frustrating, unpleasant, etc.) – in a result they tend to reject or postpone doing that task (or at least to work at it not so hard and diligently as they really can). Task avoidance can appear because some level of whether physical or mental discomfort is connected to performance of a task.
It hit me after reading this, the he gets it from me:) I do not avoid task but I definitely procrastinate. Now to combat this!
My task for the week is discover ways to combat this for both of us. Here is what I found.
- Make a list of everything you have to do.
- Write an intention statement .
- Set realistic goals.
- Break it down.
- Make your task meaningful.
- Promise yourself a reward.
- Eliminate tasks you never plan to do.
- Estimate the amount of time you think it will take you to complete a task, then increase that amount by 100%.
Do you have ways that you combat this? Please share!
I have the same problem :/ I use the S.M.A.R.T.(Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely)goal strategy. It usually helps me produce reasonable goals that I can follow-up on and achieve. Another strategy I use is to combine more than one task at one time. For instance, I would blog for 30 minutes then get up and do the laundry, then return to blogging. It usually works!