uExpress.com: Smart Moves by Ellen James Martin -- (03/10/2010) OVERCOMING PROCRASTINATION ON THE SALE OF YOUR HOME

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03/10/2010

OVERCOMING PROCRASTINATION ON THE SALE OF YOUR HOME

Three months ago, a special education teacher in her 20s married a store manager of the same age. Soon after, the couple bought a pleasant suburban house with four spacious bedrooms and an imposing family room fireplace. But there's a costly catch to this otherwise happy tale: The teacher is procrastinating on the sale of her apartment she bought before meeting her husband.

"And it's costing her an extra $900 a month to make that extra mortgage payment," says Sid Davis, the real estate broker who's listed the unit.

After much urging from Davis, the teacher cleared out the closets in her apartment, but "her carpets should all be cleaned and her half-finished painting projects should be completed," adds Davis, the author of "A Survival Guide to Selling a Home."

He has shown the teacher's apartment to more than a dozen prospective buyers with no success.

So why does the teacher continue to fail to finish the improvements -- despite her obvious financial interest in a sale?

"Nearly always, procrastination has only one element and that's fear," says Gloria Arenson, a psychotherapist and author of "EFT for Procrastination." (EFT stands for "Emotional Freedom Techniques.")

Arenson says that while the most common fear that stops people is fear of failure, a less common explanation is the fear of success. For example, the teacher might have an unconscious sense that she's not entitled to a profit on her sale.

Besides fear, many people procrastinate due to a resistance to authority and the notion that they should do what people tell them, says Neil Fiore, a psychologist and author of "The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play."

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Once you've identified the likely cause of your procrastination, experts in the field suggest you consider several coping strategies. Here are several pointers:

Break down your project into manageable action steps.

A home sale involves many steps. Before putting a home on the market, people must interview real estate agents, set a selling price, attend to landscaping issues, clear through clutter and line up contractors. "Such a big project can seem especially daunting to procrastinators who are perfectionists," says Lenora M. Yuen, co-author of "Procrastination: Why You Do it, What to Do About it Now."

Yuen urges procrastinators to list all the small steps they expect the home-selling process to involve and then proceed incrementally, dealing with setbacks and mistakes as they arise.

Consider shutting off potential distractions in your environment.

As Fiore says, people are spending an increasing amount of time with electronic devices that can become a diversion from the hard work involved in a major project. They're spending more time on the Internet and calling or texting from their cell phones. This is on top of all their TV watching.

So when attempting to concentrate on your home sale, Fiore suggests you temporarily disable any electronic devices that could sidetrack you -- turning off your phones, shutting down your computer and making it difficult to watch TV.

Seek help in purging your place of excess belongings.

One of the toughest jobs facing would-be home sellers is to cull through all the belongings that crowd their property, anything from their kids' elementary school art work to boxes of computer gear or unsorted hardware.

If you're having trouble sifting through all your clutter, Davis says you should consider hiring a professional organizer. One way to find an organizer in your area is through the Web site of the National Association of Professional Organizers (www.napo.net).

Pick a real estate agent to help you move forward to your selling goal.

Many long-time homeowners, and especially those with attention deficit disorder (ADD), feel overwhelmed by all that's involved in making a long-time residence marketable. Their to-do lists seem endless, says Linda Anderson, a specialist in the ADD field who coaches those with the disorder.

ADD is a problem involving habitual distraction, impulsivity or both. Though many adults with ADD have successful careers, complex personal projects can seem especially challenging to them.

To cope, home sellers with ADD often need supportive people around them to sustain movement toward a goal, says Anderson, a former president of the Attention Deficit Disorder Association (www.add.org).

Davis says the careful selection of a real estate agent is particularly important for procrastinators, whether they have ADD or not. A supportive agent will help you identify everything you must do to sell your home, as well as identify competent and reasonably priced contractors who can do the repairs your property needs.

"Lots of people are so scared of being ripped off by contractors that they get frozen by indecision. But a good agent will help you find contractors who are reliable and trustworthy," he says.

To contact Ellen James Martin, e-mail her at ellenjamesmartin@gmail.com.