Resting on campusHere’s a prayer for you to help overcome procrastination.  Procrastination is defined as voluntarily spending time doing low priority tasks and putting off the higher priority ones to a later time even though we’ll be worse off trying to make up for lost time when the deadline comes.

All of us procrastinate for different reasons on different tasks.  Experts have estimated that between 10 and 15% of us have a serious problem with procrastination.  Other studies say that 95% of all college students procrastinate in their studies and that over half of all college students say they need help with overcoming procrastination.

Prayer for God’s Help to Overcome Procrastination

Dear Heavenly Father,

I come to you asking for help with my tendency to procrastinate and put off important tasks, studies, projects and serious personal conversations until the last minute.  Thank you for all of the times you  rescued me from my own bad habits when I really didn’t deserve it because I didn’t work and plan ahead.

Here are the specific things I always find myself putting off until they absolutely have to get done…

I confess my faults and offer my guilt, my stress and the loss of personal productivity to you, asking for your helping presence.

I pray that you will give me self-knowledge into the reasons and into the root causes of why I put things off.

Is it avoidance because of fear of failure, anxiety over whether I can do the job that keeps me from starting or finishing?

Is it that I am too easily distracted by things I really like doing?

Is it because I have been running on the false assumption that I work better under pressure?

Is there something else going on that you’d like to show me?

I ask that you give me a greater appreciation of the preciousness of time.  I thank you that you are the Lord of order, of creation and of history.  You have created seasons, months and days, sleep and wake, life and growth.  I am grateful that even though you live outside of time in eternity, you understand how I feel because your son Jesus had to make decisions and take action about what things he should make a priority.  Help me to define my priorities and then follow the example of how Jesus got up early before sunrise and went off to lonely places to pray because it was on his priority list and he knew if he put it off till later, it wouldn’t get done.  (see Mark 1:35)

I pray that you will guide me.  Please help me set good time priorities and stick with them.  Give me self discipline.  Empower me to ask others for help when I don’t know how to get started or how to finish up.   Give me confidence in my ability to do big tasks.  Help me to overcome the temptation to do other things that I’d rather be doing that are less important.  I know that you want me to live a healthy, productive life.  Help me learn how to break this habit.  Empower me in my weakness.  Bring me back when I stray.  Focus me.  Organize me.  Remind me.  Energize me.  Amen.

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Copyright Karen Barber 2012  All rights reserved.