You all remember my good friend Phil Wells from the first ever payday segment on follow my bliss.

Phil has recently started a new job, gotten engaged!!, and made a new career plan. His forward movement is inspiring, to say the least. Perhaps I’m putting words onto his situation, but from the outside, Phil seems to be on a roll.

So when I read his most recent blog entry today, I decided I had to share it. Beyond his big life changes, he’s been making little ones too. Today, he wrote about a method he’s been using to combat procrastination. The concept is brilliant in its simplicity. From someone who struggles with procrastination herself, someone who’s been sitting in this new, more private location at the desk job for the last few weeks and has spent the extra free time commenting on facebook photos instead of Any Of The Other Things She Wants To Be Doing, from that girl – thanks for sharing Phil. This is a great idea and I’m going to try it out myself.

Phil’s blog entry today:

(12+3)*4

I am a procrastinator, and I get the feeling most of the people I know are the same way.  In this day and age it’s easy to assume that this is brought on by some chemical imbalance in my brain.  It’s become hip to self-diagnose as “ADD” or “just a little autistic” or “actually so smart it makes me seem kind of slow”.

Whatever.  I know that here, in real life, procrastination can be overcome with a little discipline and a lot of caffeine.  For the discipline, I turn to (10+2)*5.

I set aside an hour, give myself a list of at least an hour’s worth of work that needs to get done, and plow through it.  I’ve actually tweaked the formula to (12+3)*4 because I like longer breaks.

• Work for 12 minutes, no excuses.
• Break for three minutes, no excuses.
• Repeat 4 times.

And there you go: you’ve completed an hour’s worth of stuff.  Now get out your stopwatch and a task list, and get back to work.

Phil’s blog is The Phil Wells Dot Com. He’s also the author of Try the Veal, a book of humorous essays, poems and short plays.