Do you have the time?
Do you have SAP Time Management Issues?
In the world of publishing and writing, there is an event held each year known as National Novel Writing Month. The goal is as it sounds: to write an entire novel in one month. For anyone who has undertaken this task before, you already understand what a feat this kind of task is.
Even professional authors struggle to produce such output on a regular basis. However, each year, thousands of people try, and each year, a percentage of them succeed. They are rewarded with bragging rights and a completed manuscript that they one day might be able to turn into something publishable.
What would you be able to accomplish if you were given a herculean task in your field and told you only had a certain amount of time to finish it? Would you be paralyzed and overwhelmed? Or would you take inventory of the specifications and the elements that were critical to quality, start dividing up tasks, and push through until it was finished?
The imposition of a difficult deadline is a powerful thing. It makes you cut your processes down to the bare essentials. It forces you to focus on only the important things and to make split second decisions, often based more on a gut feeling and intuition rather than logical reasoning and careful planning.
Have you ever desperately wanted to skip the procedural nonsense at work and just implement a solution that you know will work, without any fuss or drawn out meetings on the topic? Unfortunately, skipping those steps can spell significant problems for you when it comes to justifying your actions to the higher-ups if things should go wrong later. However, that doesn’t mean there are not things you can’t do right now to boost your productivity and increase your work output.
Consider the all-important deadline. What if you imposed one on yourself every time you had a task assigned to you that you do not like? Most procrastination can be attributed to people simply putting off today what they do not want to do, convincing themselves that they will be in a better mood tomorrow to tackle the parts they do not like.
When you have a deadline, there is no putting it off: you do it, along with all of the other components you have to do, and you put it behind you. Think of it a bit like ripping off a band aid; you can do it one millimeter at a time, or get it over with quickly so you no longer have to think about it.
By setting these deadlines for yourself, even if they are imaginary or self-imposed, your productivity at work will skyrocket.
What project has been sitting on your desk at work, untouched, for the longest period of time? Have you been stalling on developing a new ABAP report for the accounting department? Have you avoided upgrading some of your BW reports because you know it will take too long? Are you uncomfortable with HTML and putting off updating the company website?
Whatever you are avoiding, it is time to tear the mask off of your procrastination and get started right now.