Procrastinator! Tom Moon, a San Francisco psychotherapist and columnist, talks about David Burns’ book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, and something called the Anti-Procrastination Sheet.

Moon explains:

“[P]rocedures like this one help people stop ruminating about their supposed internal deficiencies and start focusing instead on what specific actions they can do to address the problem at hand. When people stop asking ‘What’s wrong with me?’ and start asking ‘What can I do differently?’ they’re already well on their way to overcoming procrastination.”

I tried the technique myself and was amazed by how distorted my perception was about the simple task of re-working my resume for the purpose of getting more responses to my job applications. The Anti-Procrastination Sheet showed me that I was being a complete drama queen about a simple task. Here’s how it works.

Moon advises:

“Break down a task you’ve been avoiding into a series of manageable steps, so that each piece can be completed in less than fifteen minutes. For each step, write down a prediction of just how difficult you expect each step to take, using a 0 to 100 percent scale. If you think the task will be relatively easy, write down a low estimate such as 10 percent; and for harder tasks, write down a larger number. In the next column, write down a number from 0 to 100 predicting how much satisfaction you expect to derive from the task. Once you’ve made these predictions, do the task and then record how difficult it actually turned out to be and how much pleasure you actually gained from doing it. This simple procedure usually helps people rapidly disconfirm their distorted beliefs that the task at hand will be painful and intolerable if they don’t avoid it.”

Let’s take my re-writing a resume example. I broke the task down into four manageable steps:

1) Review resume formats
2) Print current resume
3) Re-write resume content to fit new format
4) Type new resume content into new format

Then I charted predicted difficulty and satisfaction vs. actual experience. Here’s how it looked:

Steps Predicted Difficulty Predicted Satisfaction Actual Difficulty Actual Satisfaction
Review resume formats 50% 25% 0% 100%
Print current resume 0% 0% 0% 50%
Re-write resume content to fit new format 100% 0% 25% 100%
Type new resume content into new format 25% 75% 40% 100%

The chart illustrates how deeply I wanted to avoid re-writing my resume to fit a new format. I didn’t know that was the specific step I feared most until I wrote out the chart. I had been using the same resume since I graduated college, and I was reluctant to try something new.

When I actually started examining other resume formats, I was excited to find one that would do a better job highlighting my transferable skills and work accomplishments. Apparently, the task wasn’t going to be as dreadful as I predicted. My fear of re-writing my resume content was blinding me to the fact that I simply needed the right resume format at my disposal. Once I found that, finishing the task was painless.

In total, it took me less than an hour and a half to create a stellar final version of my resume that is sure to get me the results I want. Sure, The Anti-Procrastination seems like more work than necessary, but I’ve certainly wasted more than an hour and a half procrastinating on getting my new resume done. The Anti-Procrastination Sheet was actually worth the effort. Give it a try, and you may be surprised by what’s been stopping you.