Being ever conscious of Parkinson's Law, which states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion, I'd like to suggest how you can use this to your advantage. Imagine you have to give a presentation on Monday week, and you're nervous about having to talk in front of many people so you want it polished and smooth. Naturally you'll get started immediately (unless you're a chronic procrastinator) and have something ready to go and well-rehearsed. But that's a mistake because you'll never have the discipline to finish it and leave it alone once it's done. It will dominate your free time until it's been given. So, instead why not decide on a reasonable time to allocate to it (8 hours perhaps?) and then start on it until a day or two before the presentation. That means you cannot possibly waste a week on a job that should take a day.
I apply this technique to many tasks with deadlines, and I'd recommend it. Last week I had to give a presentation myself, and I deliberately decided not to prepare anything formal because I knew that opening up Powerpoint would only lead to time wasted fiddling with styles and formats. Instead I read over the material in the final hour before the talk and improvised it.
One final corollary. If you're worried about an upcoming event, then don't even think about it. Decide that there's no point stressing about it until 5 minutes before it starts because thinking about it doesn't achieve anything except heighten your anxiety.
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