I am Dr. Hassan, a Board-Certified Physiatrist and Independent Practice Owner. I help physiatrists start and grow their own profitable practices so they can achieve financial independence and live without limits.

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When building a profitable practice, it’s important to avoid developing a habit of procrastination. Procrastination is a proven producer of frequent failures. A comical essay written in 1955 can help you fail fewer times and enjoy more successes. Surreal Northcote Parkinson authored a humorous article for The Economist. Parkinson took some jabs at the inefficiency and poor productivity of the British Civil Service where he served for several years. Here’s the principle based on the first sentence of that essay:

“Parkinson’s Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

You’ve probably seen this yourself, an employee is told he has a week to complete a task. Most people today have a lot to do. The employee in question is no different. He looks at everything he has on his plate and decides to get started on this task in a couple of days. After all, he has an entire week to finish it. Guess what inevitably happens? This task is completed at the last minute, or the deadline must be extended. This is Parkinson’s Law in full effect.

This happens for a few reasons. It’s easier not to do something than to do it. People love to procrastinate. We love putting things off, don’t we? This is often the case if you have some annoying or bothersome task facing you. A lot of times though, the things we have to do aren’t aggravating at all. They’re often quite simple. It’s easy to do the laundry. You’ve done it before. It doesn’t take a lot of time. You just throw the clothes in your washing machine, and it does the hard work. When that job is complete, your clothes dryer takes over. The task requires very little mental and physical energy. Even though it’s simple and easy to accomplish, it’s a lot easier to not do the laundry. Combine that truism with Parkinson’s Law, and you start putting off until tomorrow things you should do today.

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone. Even if you’re fortunate enough to have lots of tomorrow’s, the more you procrastinate, the less you’re going to get done. This mindset also leads to more failures where your important goals are concerned. You get lazily addicted to a ‘tomorrow’s fine’ mindset. Suddenly you have so many things to do that you have to totally avoid a few of them. This way of thinking leads to failure because you’re rushing around at the last minute and might not have the resources or skills required to create the desired result. Deadlines are good. They’re definitely needed to accomplish important things in your life. Just make sure you don’t fall in love with the deadline.

End your procrastination. Stop putting things off. Why not accomplish something sooner rather than later. That gives you more free time to do other things that are important to you.

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The most affective way to end procrastination is to determine why you procrastinate in the first place. Check out our blog post here for a few different reasons you may procrastinate.

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I’m Dr. Hassan, a Board-Certified Physiatrist and Independent Practice Owner. I help physiatrists start and grow their own profitable practices so they can achieve financial independence and live without limits. Please go to businessofrehab.com/contractnegotiations to pick up the free guide to help you negotiate the contract of your dreams.

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Attention, Physiatrists! Stop leaving money on the table. Sign up for the free video series: How To Build A Profitable Practice in 90 Days or Less: http://www.sixtytosuccess.com