11 Practical Ways
To Stop Procrastination
Celestine Chua
You have a deadline looming.
However, instead of doing your work, you are fiddling
with miscellaneous things
like checking email, social media, watching videos,
surfing blogs and forums.
You know you should be working, but you just
don’t feel like doing anything.
We are all familiar with the
procrastination phenomenon. When we procrastinate,
we squander away our free
time and put off important tasks we should be doing until till it’s too
late. And when it is indeed too late, we panic and
wish we got started earlier.
The chronic procrastinators I know have spent years of
their life looped in this cycle.
Delaying, putting off things, slacking, hiding from work,
facing work only when it’s unavoidable, then repeating this loop all over
again.
It’s a bad habit that eats us away and prevents us
from achieving greater results in life.
Don’t let
procrastination take over your life.
Here, I will share my personal steps which I use to
overcome procrastination with great success.
These 11 steps
will definitely apply to you too:
1 Break your work into little steps.
Part of the reason why we procrastinate is because
subconsciously, we find the work
too overwhelming for us. Break it down into little parts,
then focus on one part at the time.
If you still procrastinate on the task after breaking it
down, then break it down even further.
Soon, your task will be so simple that you will be
thinking “gee, this is so simple
that I might as well just do it now!”
For example, I’m currently writing a new book (on How to
achieve anything in life).
Book writing at its full scale is an enormous project and
can be overwhelming.
However, when I break it down into phases such as – (1)
Research (2) Deciding the topic
(3) Creating the outline (4) Drafting the content (5)
Writing Chapters #1 to #10, (6) Revision
(7) etc, suddenly it seems very
manageable. What I do then is to focus on the immediate phase
and get it done to my best ability, without thinking
about the other phases.
When it’s done, I move on to the next.
2 Change your environment.
Different environments have different impact on our
productivity.
Look at your work desk and your room.
Do they make you want to work or do they
make you want to snuggle and sleep?
If it’s the latter, you should look into changing your
workspace. One thing to note is that
an environment that makes us feel inspired before may
lose its effect after a period of time.
If that’s the case, then it’s time to change things
around. Refer to Steps #2 and #3 of 13 Strategies To Jumpstart Your
Productivity,
which talks about revamping your environment and workspace.
3 Create a detailed timeline with specific deadlines.
Having just 1 deadline for your work is like an
invitation to procrastinate.
That’s because we get the impression that we have time
and keep pushing everything back,
until it’s too late. Break down your project (see tip
#1), then create an overall timeline with specific deadlines for each small
task. This way, you know you have to finish each task by a certain date. Your
timelines must be robust, too – i.e. if you don’t finish this by today, it’s
going to jeopardize everything else you have planned after that. This way it
creates the urgency to act.
My goals are broken down into monthly, weekly, right down
to the daily task lists, and the list
is a call to action that I must accomplish this by the
specified date, else my goals will be put off.
3 Eliminate your procrastination pit-stops.
If you are procrastinating a little too much, maybe
that’s because you make it easy
to procrastinate. Identify your browser bookmarks that
take up a lot of your time
and shift them into a separate folder that is less
accessible.
Disable the automatic notification option in your email
client.
Get rid of the distractions around you. I know some
people will go out of the way
and delete/deactivate their facebook accounts.
I think it’s a little drastic/extreme as addressing
procrastination is more about being conscious
of our actions than counteracting via self-binding
methods,
but if you feel that’s what’s needed, go for it.
4 Hang out with people who inspire you to take
action.
I’m pretty sure if you spend just 10 minutes talking to
Steve Jobs or Bill Gates,
you’ll be more inspired to act than if you spent the 10
minutes doing nothing.
The people we are with influence our behaviors. Of course
spending time with Steve Jobs/
Bill Gates every day is probably not a feasible
method, but the principle applies.
Identify the people/friends/colleagues who trigger you –
most likely the go-getters a
nd hard workers – and hang out with them more often. Soon
you will inculcate their drive and spirit too. As a personal development
blogger, I “hang out” with inspiring personal development experts by reading their
blogs and corresponding with them regularly via email/social media.
It’s communication via new media and it works all the
same.
5 Get a buddy.
Having a companion makes the whole process much more fun.
Ideally, your buddy should be someone who has his/her own set of goals. Both of
you will hold each other accountable
to your goals and plans. While it’s not necessary for
both of you to have the same goals,
it’ll be even better if that’s the case, so you can learn
from each other. I have a good friend
whom I talk to regularly, and we always ask each other
about our goals and progress
in achieving those goals. Needless to say, it spurs us to
keep taking action.
6 Tell others about your goals.
This serves the same function as #6, on a larger scale.
Tell all your friends, colleagues, acquaintances and family about your
projects. Now whenever you see them, they are bound to ask you about your
status on those projects. For example, sometimes I announce my projects
on The Personal Excellence Blog, Twitter and Facebook,
and my readers will ask me about them
on an ongoing basis. It’s a great way to keep myself
accountable to my plans.
7 Seek out someone who has already achieved the
outcome.
What is it you want to accomplish here, and who are the
people who have accomplished
this already? Go seek them out and connect with them.
Seeing living proof
that your goals are very well achievable if you take
action is one of the best triggers for action.
8 Re-clarify your goals.
If you have been procrastinating for an extended period
of time, it might reflect a misalignment between what you want and what you are
currently doing. Often times, we outgrow our goals
as we discover more about ourselves, but we don’t change
our goals to reflect that.
Get away from your work (a short vacation will be good,
else just a weekend break will do too)
and take some time to regroup yourself. What exactly do
you want to achieve?
What should you do to get there? What are the steps to
take?
Does your current work align with that? If not, what can
you do about it?
9 Stop over-complicating things.
Are you waiting for a perfect time to do this? That maybe
now is not the best time
because of X, Y, Z reasons? Ditch that thought because
there’s never a perfect time.
If you keep waiting for one, you are never going to
accomplish anything.
Perfectionism is one of the biggest reasons for
procrastination.
Read more about why perfectionist tendencies can be a bane
than a boon:
Why Being A Perfectionist May Not Be So Perfect.
10 Get a grip and just do it.
At the end, it boils down to taking action. You can do
all the strategizing,
planning and hypothesizing, but if you don’t take action,
nothing’s going to happen.
Occasionally, I get readers and clients who keep
complaining about their situations
but they still refuse to take action at the end of the
day.
11 Reality check:
I have never heard anyone procrastinate their way to
success before
and I doubt it’s going to change in the near
future. Whatever it is you are procrastinating on,
if you want to get it done, you need to get a grip on
yourself and do it.
Which tips work best for you? Do you have your own
personal tip to overcome procrastination? Please share with everyone in the
comments section :)
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/11-practical-ways-to-stop-procrastination.html
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