It is easy to delay or defer tasks, especially if the deadline for completing them isn't today. This is the definition of procrastination. It is much harder to create the sense that a task has such pressing importance that it requires immediate action. Yet most projects are a series of individual tasks that must be started well before the project deadline. For example, if you are self employed, your next quarterly tax payment is due on September 15th. That may seem like more enough time to defer starting on your taxes and still have time to finish, but if you use the duration calculator from the Time and Date web site (http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html) you will find you only have 1 month, 26 days or 57 days, which does not seem so very long, especially if you are depending on information from other people. My suggestion is to calculate the duration of time until a given deadline to see if this increases your motivation to begin a particular task.
