When we were kids, my dad bought a used Jeep Wagoneer from a family friend and drove that thing until it was ready for the scrap yard. Time and again Mom cautioned him that he needed to have the Jeep serviced or replace it before he found himself hitchhiking around town. Time and again Daddy said he’d get around to it tomorrow … next week … next month … one of these days.

Finally one afternoon he was stopped at a traffic light at an intersection on a four-lane highway when the Jeep started to do a little shimmy. It coughed a couple of times, made a loud POW, and died. Part of the engine had dropped out onto the road. And as is usually the case with procrastination, hauling away the dead Jeep was a lot more trouble and expense than taking care of a still-breathing Jeep would have been.

If, like my dad, you’re a world-class procrastinator, begin working the problem by figuring out which of these categories best describes you:

• Mission challenged. You have so many things going on in your life that you have trouble deciding what needs to be done. So you wind up letting everything but the daily essentials fall by the wayside. Resolve the issue by making a list of all the projects you’d like to accomplish in the next three months. Then prioritize the projects, and focus on the top priority—and only the top priority. Now you have your assignment.

• Goal challenged. You know your assignment but you can’t figure out where to start. The bigger the job, the more overwhelming it may seem—especially since your other responsibilities don’t just stop while you’re trying to tackle this one. Make the job easier by breaking it into bite-size pieces. Come up with a series of 10-, 15-, or 30-minute tasks—whatever your schedule will allow. Don’t worry about how long it will take to finish the project. Each step will get you closer to Mission Accomplished.

• Motivation challenged. You have your mission and you’ve set your interim goals and you’ve even managed to get started. But you have trouble staying with the program, and after a while you wind up dropping the whole thing. Try scheduling your daily tasks on a calendar or daily to-do list and checking them off as you finish. Create daily or weekly incentive rewards to help keep yourself on track. Finally, as soon as you finish one mission, go back to your priority list and start another. Before long you’ll get in a groove and break the procrastination habit for good.