This Is How You Effectively Coach Someone Who Wants To Reduce Their Procrastination

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There are is a general process to help those people:

1. Figure out Why they Procrastinate — Is it due to a fear of failure? Due to the joy received during procrastination? Or due to the lack of vision for what being productive will result in?
2. Make their Reason Clear to them — When they understand why they procrastinate they can better interact and counter it.
3. Developing Easy, Strong and Uncomfortable Habits — A mix of everything is good. Depending on the person these will be more in number and more in difficulty, but for most people, you want to start off small to drive them into a cycle of positive reinforcement.
4. Calling them out on their Bullshit — As a coach, this step is probably the most important one. You have to be far more direct than the person you are working with and call them out on every little thing that might lead to procrastination. Be ruthless here.
5. Reminding them of their Reason — It’s good to couple positive reinforcement with their goals, reminding them of what positive things being productive will result in.
6. Keeping them Accountable to themselves — If you can, catch them the second they begin to lie to themselves or slack and figure out why they do.

This is the general process for coaching someone that wants to reduce their procrastination.

The bullshit they tell themselves, the habits that will work for them as well as their reasons for why they want to be productive and why they are slacking will all differ from person to person.

Which means while the above process generally works, the details of it are what makes it effective for the individual.

Originally published at http://quora.com.