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Strengthening Your Team: 
Beating Procrastination
There a number of excellent books available if you want to gain a better understanding of the causes and resources for overcoming procrastination.  Here are several of them:
One of the very best books I've ever studied for help with beating procrastination is Neil Fiore's The Now Habit.  It reads well and gives an outstanding understanding of the causes of and solutions to changing procrastination habits. If you want to improve your own productivity or if you are responsible for boosting the productivity of others, this book can be very helpful to you and your colleagues.  You can purchase it for just $9.69 from Amazon.com.  Click on the book cover to learn more or to order a copy:
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Neil Fiore's The Now Habit at Work: Perform Optimally, Maintain Focus, and Ignite Motivation in Yourself and Others asks and answers the questions, "What if working harder, stressing more, and putting in more hours aren't the secret to success? What if truly effective managers, entrepreneurs, and businesspeople simply use more of their brain to make creative decisions, work in the zone, and live more fully in the process?"
If you're looking for ways to improve your own productivity or to help your team make better use of the skills they have brought to their jobs, read this book.  You might consider making it required reading for anyone who works with you.  It will help them develop new habits that will increase their productivity and their enjoyment of their work.
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Another very helpful book on this subject is Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Concise Guide to Strategies for Change, by Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D.  Dr. Pychyl does a great job of giving the reader a simple but useful understanding of how and why we put things off as well as some easily copied worksheets that you can use on an ongoing basis.  These worksheets will help take the intimidation out of big tasks and making it a lot easier to get started on their smaller components.  Great cartoons that really remind me of my more youthful self!
The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D, has become one of my favorites.  It's fascinating, well-written, and extremely useful for anyone who wants to improve the quality of their productive life.  Here is the description from the publisher, and believe me, none of this is an exaggeration.  This is the kind of book you'll go back to time and time again:

"Based on Stanford University psychologist Kelly McGonigal's wildly popular course "The Science of Willpower," The Willpower Instinct is the first book to explain the new science of self-control and how it can be harnessed to improve our health, happiness, and productivity.
Informed by the latest research and combining cutting-edge insights from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine, The Willpower Instinct explains exactly what willpower is, how it works, and why it matters. In this book you will learn:
  • Willpower is a mind-body response, not a virtue. It is a biological function that can be improved through mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, and sleep.
  • Willpower is not an unlimited resource. Too much self-control can actually be bad for your health.
  • Temptation and stress hijack the brain's systems of self-control, but the brain can be trained for greater willpower
  • Guilt and shame over your setbacks lead to giving in again, but self-forgiveness and self-compassion boost self-control.
  • Giving up control is sometimes the only way to gain self-control.
  • Willpower failures are contagious—you can catch the desire to overspend or overeat from your friends­­—but you can also catch self-control from the right role models.
    • In the groundbreaking tradition of Getting Things Done, The Willpower Instinct combines life-changing prescriptive advice and complementary exercises to help readers with goals ranging from losing weight to more patient parenting, less procrastination, better health, and greater productivity at work."
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If you, like me, believe that a little humor helps solve problems, put this great looking poster up in your office, your conference room, your lunch-room, or anyplace at work where people can have a look at it and have a smile.  The line underneath "PROCRASTINATION" reads, "I'll find a picture for it later!".
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Do you have someone on your team who's made real progress in overcoming their procrastination habit?  How about a reward that will give everyone a good laugh. It's a T-shirt with the message, "I'VE SOLVED MY PROCRASTINATION PROBLEM...just you wait and see!"
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The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg:
Even if you have no interest in improving your own behavior patterns or in helping others improve theirs, this may be one of the most interesting books you'll read this year.  Developing new habits or breaking old habits is very hard to do, but Charles Duhigg provides a wonderful understanding of why we find change so difficult and how to succeed in meeting our short- and long-term goals.  He also tells some great stories about individuals, companies, and organizations like the United States Army and what he learned from them.
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