Procrastination

I keep asking myself, What do I feel like doing? What have I been saying I'm going to do? Why am I not doing what I need to be doing? And finally, What am I doing? For some unknown reason (maybe not so unknown, read on friends) I find myself full of excuses why I'm not doing what I KNOW that I need to do.
Take this blog for example, I've been ruminating over what I wanted to write about since last Saturday, yet I didn't even start this until mid-afternoon on Tuesday. Oh, I have excuses (yep the phone did ring, people stopped by my open office door, etc) but really the bottom line here is I didn't start writing until just now. In fact, I am going to still not write about what I was thinking about so that I can discuss how to deal with my procrastination. I promise I will get to that other subject soon.
Here are several points that I am going to throw out (mainly for ME to re-read) that may be helpful to others. These are actions that I can take to stop my procrastinating.
1. Stop making excuses. I just need to make my choices as to which priorities are important.
2. Start NOW. TODAY. I tend to push off until tomorrow and I have no guarantee of a tomorrow, or the time tomorrow that I couldn't seem to find today.
3. Establish a planned schedule and stick to it. I need to put each task on my calendar and allocate proper time frames to accomplish it (or the bite sized pieces if it is a large task) and then stick to my schedule. PERIOD. Ignore the phone and close the office door.
4. Face my fears. I'm not sure what I am afraid of but obviously subconsciously I have a fear of doing something or I would just do it.
5. Focus on what I gain, not the pain of doing the task. Very few worthwhile things in life are easily accomplished. I need to push through the frustration and concentrate on how great I will feel when this task is finished.
6. Perseverance. I once gave a 20 minute talk about perseverance that lasted almost 2 hours. Seriously! What I found was that once I got started I knew a lot about the subject and wanted to share with others, much like writing this blog. I actually enjoyed that 2 hours and it only seemed like 20 minutes had passed to me.
7. Self awareness. Monitor my internal monologue to see and understand WHY I decide what I do and HOW I make that decision. Then the rest is easy - just re-write the script the way I KNOW it should be and go forward.
OK, so now you can start cheering and clapping for me as I've overcome procrastination for today and have a written plan to re-read every time I need to do something. A preacher friend of mine loves to say that it is much easier to be a Christian in the church building than to walk down a street with sinners full of temptations that pull at me.
Procrastination seems to be one of those sin's to me - it is much easier to identify it AFTER I've overcome it and reflect back and wonder why it took me so long.

How do YOU handle procrastination and overcome it in your world?

Steve