Do you often find yourself postponing your task for a later point in time? If yes, then you tend to procrastinate. Procrastinating can deter you from being productive and severely impact your psyche. Procrastination can manifest itself in combination with other psychological issues, such as self-doubt and anxiety, that can impair your ability to function at your optimal level.
Therefore, you must identify the signs of procrastination in you and take the necessary steps to remove it completely.
Let us first understand what procrastination is and what steps we can take to overcome procrastination in our lives.
What is Procrastination?
Procrastination is the act of postponing or delaying events, actions, and tasks. Procrastination could be a result of the following reasons:
- Fear of failure
- Lack of motivation
- Distraction
- Prioritizing short-term gratifications
Delaying important tasks may have several personal and professional consequences and lead to overall stunted growth. It can potentially lead to elevated stress levels, missed deadlines, lowered productivity, and reduced time management techniques. This can also create a chain reaction where you find yourself dealing with anxiety and stress.
For instance, you are given a task. You procrastinate and keep the task for later. Lacking time-management skills, you fail to finish the project or task within the deadline. You are always on the edge of not finishing your task. You feel stressed and anxious.
Soon, this becomes a pattern, and you develop an idea that you are someone who cannot finish work in time, and you build self-doubt and depression.
How to Overcome Procrastination?
Overcoming procrastination is not just about taking some measures but also about breaking patterns that you might have built throughout your life. It requires self-awareness and effective strategies to help you topple the psychological barrier of resistance you create to bring positive changes in your habit.
10 Effective Ways to Overcome Procrastination
Focus on One Thing
Focus is an effective way to counter procrastination. Sometimes, we burden ourselves with more tasks than we can handle. This overwhelms us, and we tend to keep all tasks for later. It is important to focus your attention on one project or task at a time and commit to it until you finish it.
Tomorrow Never Comes
There is a wise saying, “Never say Never”. We say, “Never say Tomorrow” because tomorrow never comes. Pick the task you wish to accomplish, and do not put it for later.
Pick it up and do it in the present moment. Now, your brain may trick you into thinking that you are doing something important, but the truth is you are not doing something productive. For example, you may have an economics exam, and you will delay studying economics until tomorrow. Instead, you read your English storybook. Your brain tells you, “You are studying!” and tries to trick you into believing you are on a progressive path.
This is where you need to break the pattern and identify if your actions today are contributing to your greater goals of tomorrow. This is an effective productivity hack.
Five Minutes Miracle
Once you have decided which task you are going to take up and that you are going to do it today, it’s very common to feel that you have less time to complete the task. This is where Five Minutes Miracle will come to your rescue.
The Five Minute Miracle is a technique that requires you to ask yourself one question - “What action can I take in the next 5 minutes so I can advance this task even a little bit?” Breaking down your actions and dividing them into tiny pockets can help you be productive. To follow this technique, you have to set a timer at 5 minutes and do the task within this timeline. Studies suggest that once you begin a task, it is most likely that you will finish it.
This phenomenon is aided by a psychological effect known as the Zeigarnik effect. As per this principle, you tend to remember unfinished tasks. It is noteworthy that even small actions matter.
Always remember that even 5 minutes can potentially make a big difference.
Trust the Power of an Hour
Power Hour is an effective time-management technique in which you keep all distractions away and devote your energy to progress your tasks within a specific duration of time. You can take breaks every 25 minutes and rest for a dedicated period, say 5 or 10 minutes. This exercise ensures that your body and brain function at an optimal level.
Scientific studies suggest that our brain covers patterns of crests and troughs. If you want to enhance your output, you have to respect your peaks and valleys by integrating both concentrated work times and relaxing intervals.
Forgive and Forget
Research suggests that the sooner you forgive yourself for your past procrastination behaviors, the faster you can overcome your procrastination. It is effective to dissociate yourself from the habitual trait and see yourself as a person who takes action at the moment. Procrastination is a habit that you have developed, and truly speaking, it’s not a figment of your personality. It is crucial to practice self-compassion when you worry about procrastination.
Move Yourself to Action with a Power Song
You must have noticed how songs have an impact on your mood and tone. A strong power song can motivate you and fill you with energy. Whenever you feel stuck in a situation, you must listen to a song that inspires you and makes your body feel good.
Identify the Core of Procrastination
You must ask yourself what you procrastinate about specifically. Is there a particular task or any specific type of task that you keep for later? Try to understand your feelings that contribute to postponing your tasks. For example, you may feel overwhelmed, scared, lazy, unsure, and many other things. For you to comprehend where this tendency stems from, you can ask yourself ‘Why?’ and answer the question in detail. It will be best if you write it down on a piece of paper. Once you can see your fears clearly, you can tell what challenges you are up against.
Make Your To-Do-List Concise
Here is a wonderful goal-setting technique for you. When the new year arrives, people often make resolutions. They make elaborate to-do lists to accomplish what they intend to do within the year. But most people fail to cover everything on the list. So, this new year, you can think of a new way to approach things. You can think of things that you can keep off the list. Allow yourself to let go of unimportant tasks and keep only the ones that contribute to your greater goals.
Have an Accountability Buddy
When you have a competitive buddy in your life, they will keep you on your toes. They take you one step ahead by engaging in healthy competition. To make this method more effective, you can set a date and time every week. On this day, you discuss the progress of your task. If you wish, you can also attach rewards.
For example, if you accomplish your task of reading 50 pages of a book, you can treat yourself to a pastry. For failed tasks, you can also build punishments as well. You can ask your accountability partner to assemble on an agreed date and inquire about each others’ progress. You must do something together as a reward, and in case of missed deadlines, you can owe them something as a bet.
Have Fun
Having fun is important. If you feel worked up and tired while performing your task, chances are that you will feel tempted to abandon it midway and approach something else. It is best to keep yourself engaged by setting a reward. This is an effective technique that trains your brain to build habits.
Bottom Line
Procrastination can be easily uprooted from your behavior by employing certain techniques. It is important to identify the instances that give rise to such habits and build effective time-management strategies to eliminate them from your life in a conscious manner.
Overcoming procrastination can help you improve productivity and contribute to enhancing your growth, be it in your career or personal life.
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