Procrastination – does it affect you or your business?

Do you or one of your colleagues or members of staff constantly delay doing things or put off jobs time and time again?

This is called procrastinating and in the workplace, this can put pressure on other people and can ultimately affect how the business performs.

There are two major signs on how to spot if procrastination is affecting you or an employee:

• Constantly offering excuse after excuse on why things are not getting done
• Spending more time doing activities like making coffee or chatting with friends on the phone rather than doing work

If your employees are procrastinating a bit too much you can try and help the situation – here are a few tips:

• Try and understand their habits to see if any of them are adding to the delay in getting things done
• Create a productive environment for your employees
• Set clear reminders and deadlines
• Set the bar higher for them, if you expect more they are more likely to perform better

Researchers have found that procrastination may be an emotional strategy for dealing with stress so it’s important that you handle the situation sensitively. Just because a job isn’t getting done, does not necessarily mean that the member of staff concerned is lazy or forgetful. There may be underlying issues of why a person is procrastinating. Usually, it’s because they simply don’t like carrying out that particular task so the best way forward is to look at the reasons why and then develop a strategy to overcome these problems.