David Megginson, emeritus professor of HRD at Sheffield Business School, turns to the self-regulating forum, LinkedIn, for perspectives on procrastination and how to address coaching around it
I decided to write this column on procrastination and, funnily enough, found I was up against time in getting it out. So, I decided to use an alternative method for assembling and writing this piece from conventional approaches to building a bibliography.
I started from the European Mentoring & Coaching Council LinkedIn chain on procrastination and coaching, which at the time of writing had 52 entries over a three-month period. The entries, as ever, led to further links, and the bibliography and references in the box give a sample of the resources that are out there for readers wanting to look deeper.
Perspectives
The LinkedIn contributions seem to vary in an interesting way, pointed out by a contribution to the string from Tim Soden, in that some feel open and enquiring, while others appear to come from an uncompromising, fixed perspective. However, I wonder whether this is such a sharp difference as it appears – as wisdom coaching, working with the client’s process, mindfulness and so on, are all brands making claims for having a meta-perspective that their author recommends.
So, if we accept the view that we are in this marketplace for knowledge together, what are the perspectives that we can use to address coaching around procrastination?
In order of posting I found the following perspectives:
- Myers-Briggs: problems of detailed tasks for Ns; Js and Ps having very different strategies
- Wisdom: respect intuition on what is the best time
- Projection: it’s the coach’s issue
- Scaling: change or stay on a 1 to 10 scale
- Paradox: when would be the best time to procrastinate about this?
- Positives: for example, in bereavement – see Joan Didion’s wonderful book The Year of Magical Thinking
- Gestalt: dialogue between self that wants and self that doesn’t; and (later) curiosity, sitting with
- Free will: we have second order desires. For example, I have the desire that I don’t desire this chocolate cake
- Top tips: there are a thousand sources for this – a useful one is www.happinessexpress.co.uk
- NLP: advanced new behaviour generator, and (later) ‘languaging’ and modal operators
- The unheated swimming pool method: JDI (just do it)!
- Fear: when is not taking action more dangerous than taking action?
- Solution focus: what would a post-miracle day look like?
- Mindfulness: use acceptance
Reflections
There are a host of perspectives to be found on this and any other coaching topic. A professional forum is a good way into finding this diversity. In a ‘wisdom of crowds’ sort of way, we can avoid being seduced by the last thing we read by opening ourselves up – in short order – to this range of opinion.
LinkedIn is a professional and self-regulating forum with the minimum of self-advertising and the maximum of helpful content. Of the popular books, Brian Tracy’s is my favourite (and he definitely has the best title); of the researchers, Joseph Ferrari takes some beating.
References
- K Blanchard and S Grotty, The On-Time, On-Target Manager: How a ‘Last-Minute Manager’ Conquered Procrastination, New York: William Morrow & Co, Inc., 2004
- J Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking, Harper, 2006
- J Ferrari, Still Procrastinating? The No Regrets Guide to Getting it Done, John Wiley, 2010
- J Ferrari, J Johnson and W McCown, Procrastination and Task Avoidance: Theory, Research and Treatment, Springer, 1995
- N Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-free Play, Tarcher, 2007
- A Perry, Isn’t It About Time?, Worth, 2002
- T Pychyl, The Procrastinator’s Digest, ebook, Xlibris, 2010
- P Steel, The Procrastination Equation, Prentice Hall, 2010
- B Tracy, Eat That Frog!, Berrett-Koehler, 2002
Coaching at Work, Volume 6, Issue 5