How to Use Procrastination As a Success Strategy

Everyone knows that the number one obstacle preventing most people from reaching their goals is procrastination. Right? Maybe not. I heard a wonderful talk by Robert Allen years ago on procrastination. In the talk, he suggested that procrastination was one of the best kept secrets of successful people.

Why? Because rich and successful people know how to take advantage of procrastination. In fact they use it as a success strategy. Poor and unsuccessful people don’t.

How can you take advantage of procrastination and use it as a success strategy?

By using the 80/20 rule or originally based on the Pareto Principle. The Pareto Principle is the observation that most things in life are not distributed evenly. It can mean all of the following things:

• 20% of the input creates 80% of the result
• 20% of the workers produce 80% of the result
• 20% of the customers create 80% of the revenue
• 20% of the bugs cause 80% of the crashes
• 20% of the features cause 80% of the usage

The point is to realize that you can often focus your effort on the 20% that makes a difference, instead of the 80% that doesn’t add much. When applying this to your business work hours, a successful person will focus on the 20% of the business activities that produce the most revenue and procrastinate the other 80%.

Statistics show us that only 20% of your business activities actually produce revenue while 80% of your time is usually spent on less productive items. For most people, that 20% are activities that are the hardest to do---making sales calls, making key contacts, writing business plans, etc. Unproductive activities are things like reading email, answering correspondence, looking up things on the Internet, meetings, etc.

And yet successful people know that the priority is to do the most productive and important things first---that 20%. So they procrastinate the 80% in order to do the 20%. What a concept! Most people naturally try to do the 80% first because it’s easier and procrastinate the 20%. But most people are not highly successful or rich.

If you procrastinate the easy stuff and tackle the highest priorities first, not only will you have a more productive business day, but you also will be using procrastination to your benefit. So the next time you are tempted to do one of the lower priority activities, procrastinate. Put it off and tackle the important things first. It’s easiest if you can work off of a list and check them off as you go. If you wish, you can schedule a 5 to 10 minute period for doing those 80% less important things as a break in your work-day.

When you are trying to maximize your bang for the buck, focusing on the critical 20% is a time-saver. See what activities generate the most results and make them your priority. Using procrastination to be more productive is a success strategy you can use right now. By doing that you will be doing what rich and successful people do.