Hey, procrastinator: Don’t you dare bookmark this to read later. “Watercooler Wisdom” co-author Karen Leland reveals the four habits followed by efficient people. Here is an excerpt:

In 1956, George Miller wrote a paper entitled “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.” He had discovered that people can only focus on five to nine things at a time — anything beyond this has to be held in the unconscious mind. For most of us, it would be a dream come true if we only had to focus on five — or even nine — things! Unfortunately, in today’s work environment we too often have to do too much in too little time, with too little energy and too little focus.

A recent study by the Families and Work Institute found that a full third of Americans are overworked; more than 50 percent of those surveyed said they are either handling too many tasks at the same time or are frequently interrupted during the workday — or both. In short, we are overloaded. Is it any wonder, then, that we have trouble getting jobs started, keeping them going, or finishing them up?

One of my clients Suzanne, a financial advisor, put it this way:

“My inbox has been piling up for weeks with items that would be good for business. I want to take some action on them but because none of them are really urgent I never get around to them. The pile is getting so high that things are beginning to fall off onto my desk! Every time I look at the stack I feel defeated, but I just don’t know where to start.”

You know what you need to do. You know why you need to do it. You even know what steps you must take to get it done. But there’s one small problem: You can’t seem to get moving. It’s a common problem. Maybe it’s chronic procrastination or maybe you’re just so overwhelmed that you feel paralyzed. Either way, the task you must complete is just sitting there, gathering metaphorical (or perhaps literal) dust, and growing more ominous by the day.

Smart and savvy business people use four habits to get themselves to take action, even in tough times. These habits act as an inoculation against procrastination.

Habit No. 1: Chunking down: Focus on the trees, not the forest
In the computer world, chunking means to break things into bits. To chunk down is to move from a whole to its parts; to chunk up is to move from parts to a whole, or from the specific to the general. Chunking your projects and goals down into smaller pieces will help you take action more quickly and easily, while at the same time helping to combat the feeling of too much to do.

The following case study examines how Jack and Sharon, first-time authors, used chunking down to achieve their goal of publishing a book: For several years, Jack and Sharon had wanted to write a book about their travel experiences in Italy. They had gotten as far as writing down some of the stories they wanted to include in the book. They took several classes on how to write travel books, but came out feeling even more confused than when they’d started. However, “One thing all the classes emphasized was to write a book proposal first,” said Jack. “So we knew this would be a good place to start.”

Traditional project management advises taking a large project — such as Jack and Sharon’s plan to write a book — and breaking it down into predictable and logical milestones. In the case of publishing a book, these milestones might include:

Step 1: Write the book proposal.

Step 2: Submit the book proposal to a list of qualified agents.

Step 3: Follow up with agents.

Step 4: Sign with an agent.

The problem is that while these milestones may be logical and predictable, they may still be too large to handle — physically, mentally, or emotionally.

Jack and Sharon felt that the first step, writing the book proposal, was too much to take on; it just seemed overwhelming. Their solution was to break up this first step by chunking it down into eight smaller, more actionable micro-milestones. Their new plan looked like this:

Step 1: Write a two-page overview of the book.

Step 2: Write our one-page authors' biography.

Step 3: Research on Amazon to find similar books already in print.

Step 4. Write a comparison book write-up.

Step 5: Write a chapter-by-chapter outline.

Step 6: Write a sample chapter.

Step 7: Write a marketing plan.

Step 8: Put all the above together into polished book proposal form.

Jack and Sharon then set deadlines for each of these smaller actions, and created a time-plan (see habit No. 3) that specified the dates and time periods when they would do their writing and research.

“Amazingly,” says Sharon, “we completed all these steps for writing the book proposal within the set time frame and then took the same approach with the other milestones in the project, breaking them down into smaller actions. It took us six months of working like this, but we are now ready to find an agent and move on to getting our book published.”

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