The Ultimate Guide:10 Tips To Stop Procrasinate
How to Stop Procrastinating
Greeting from Ying here. I understand why you are here because of procrastinate because you delay a lot of things and you need to overcome them, so here is the list of how you can overcome what I face before.
Overcoming the Habit of Delaying Important Tasks
It's Friday afternoon and the clock is ticking. You're working furiously to complete a task before the five o'clock deadline, while silently cursing yourself for not starting it sooner.
How did this happen? What went wrong? Why did you lose your focus?
Well, there were the hours that you spent re-reading emails and checking social media, the excessive "preparation," the coffee breaks, and the time spent on other tasks that you could have safely left for next week.
Sound familiar? If so, you're not alone!
Procrastination is a trap that many of us fall into. In fact, according to researcher and speaker Piers Steel , 95 percent of us procrastinate to some degree. While it may be comforting to know that you're not alone, it can be sobering to realize just how much it can hold you back.
In this article, we look at why it happens, and we explore strategies for managing and prioritizing your workload more effectively.
Is Procrastination the Same as Being Lazy?
Procrastination is often confused with laziness, but they are very different.
Procrastination is an active process – you choose to do something else instead of the task that you know you should be doing. In contrast, laziness suggests apathy, inactivity and an unwillingness to act.
Procrastination usually involves ignoring an unpleasant, but likely more important task, in favor of one that is more enjoyable or easier.
But giving in to this impulse can have serious consequences. For example, even minor episodes of procrastination can make us feel guilty or ashamed. It can lead to reduced productivity and cause us to miss out on achieving our goals.
If we procrastinate over a long period of time, we can become demotivated and disillusioned with our work, which can lead to depression and even job loss, in extreme cases.
How to Overcome Procrastination
As with most habits, it is possible to overcome procrastination. Follow the steps below to help you to deal with and prevent procrastination:
Tips 1: Recognize That You're Procrastinating
You might be putting off a task because you've had to re-prioritize your workload. If you're briefly delaying an important task for a genuinely good reason, then you aren't necessarily procrastinating. However, if you start to put things off indefinitely, or switch focus because you want to avoid doing something, then you probably are.
You may also be procrastinating if you:
Fill your day with low-priority tasks.
Leave an item on your To-Do list for a long time, even
though it's important.
Read emails several times over without making a decision on
what to do with them.
Start a high-priority task and then go off to make a coffee.
Fill your time with unimportant tasks that other people ask
you to do, instead of getting on with the important tasks already on your list.
Wait to be in "right mood," or wait for the
"right time" to tackle a task.
Tips 2: Work Out WHY You're Procrastinating
You need to understand the reasons why you are procrastinating before you can begin to tackle it.
For instance, are you avoiding a particular task because you find it boring or unpleasant? If so, take steps to get it out of the way quickly, so that you can focus on the aspects of your job that you find more enjoyable.
Poor organization can lead to procrastination. Organized people successfully overcome it because they use prioritized To Do List (you can check how to use to do list effectively by press this link) and create effective schedules. These tools help you to organize your tasks by priority and deadline.
Even if you're organized, you can still feel overwhelmed by a task. Perhaps you have doubts about your ability and are worried about failing, so you put it off and seek comfort in doing work that you know that you're capable of completing.
Some people fear success as much as failure. They think that success will lead to them being swamped with requests to take on more tasks.
Surprisingly, perfectionists are often procrastinators. Often, they'd rather avoid doing a task that they don't feel they have the skills to do, than do it imperfectly.
Another major cause of procrastination is poor decision-making. If you can't decide what to do, you'll likely put off taking action in case you do the wrong thing.
Tips 3: Adopt Anti-Procrastination Strategies
Procrastination is a habit – a deeply ingrained pattern of behavior. This means that you probably can't break it overnight. Habits only stop being habits when you avoid practicing them, so try as many of the strategies, below, as possible to give yourself the best possible chance of succeeding.
Forgive yourself for procrastinating in the past. Studies
show that self-forgiveness can help you to feel more positive about yourself
and reduce the likelihood of procrastination in the future.
Commit to the task. Focus on doing, not avoiding. Write down
the tasks that you need to complete, and specify a time for doing them. This
will help you to proactively tackle your work.
Promise yourself a reward. If you complete a difficult task
on time, reward yourself with a treat, such as a slice of cake or a coffee from
your favorite coffee shop. And make sure you notice how good it feels to finish
things!
Ask someone to check up on you. Peer pressure works! This is
the principle behind self-help groups. If you don't have anyone to ask, an
online tool such as Procraster can help you to self-monitor.
Act as you go. Tackle tasks as soon as they arise, rather
than letting them build up over another day.
Rephrase your internal dialog. The phrases "need
to" and "have to," for example, imply that you have no choice in
what you do. This can make you feel disempowered and might even result in
self-sobotage. However, saying, "I choose to," implies that you own a
project, and can make you feel more in control of your workload.
Minimize distraction. Turn off your email and social media,
and avoid sitting anywhere near a television while you work!
Aim to "eat an elephant beetle" first thing, every day! Get those tasks that you find least pleasant out of the way early. This will give you the rest of the day to concentrate on work that you find more enjoyable.
If you're procrastinating because you find a task unpleasant, try to focus on the "long game." Research shows that impulsive people are more likely to procrastinate because they are focused on short-term gain. Combat this by identifying the long-term benefits of completing the task. For instance, could it affect your annual performance review or end-of-year bonus?
Another way to make a task more enjoyable is to identify the unpleasant consequences of avoiding it. For instance, what will happen if you don't complete the work? How might it affect your personal, team or organizational goals?
At the same time, it can be useful to reframe the task by looking at its meaning and relevance This will increase its value to you and make your work more worthwhile. It's also important to acknowledge that we can often overestimate the unpleasantness of a task. So give it a try! You may find that it's not as bad as you thought, after all!
If you procrastinate because you're disorganized, here are six strategies to help you get organized:
Keep a To-Do List. This will prevent you from
"conveniently" forgetting about those unpleasant or overwhelming
tasks.
Prioritize your To-Do List using Eisenhower's
Urgent/Important Principle. This will enable you to quickly identify the
activities that you should focus on, as well as the ones you can ignore.
Become a master of scheduling and project planning. If you
have a big project or multiple projects on the go and you don't know where to
start, these tools can help you to plan your time effectively, and reduce your
stress levels.
Tackle the hardest tasks at your peak time,. Do you work
better in the morning or the afternoon? Identify when you're most effective,
and do the tasks that you find most difficult at these times.
Set yourself time-bound goals. Setting yourself specific
deadlines to complete tasks will keep you on track to achieve your goals, and
will mean that you have no time for procrastination!
Use task- and time-management apps. There are numerous apps
designed to help you to be more organized, such as Trello and Toggl, for example.
If you're prone to delaying projects because you find them
overwhelming, try breaking them down into more manageable chunks. Organize your
projects into smaller tasks and focus on starting them, rather than on
finishing them.
In his 2011 book, "The Procrastination Cure ,"
Jeffery Combs suggests tackling tasks in 15-minute bursts of activity.
Alternatively, you can create an Action Plan to organize your project. Start
with quick and small tasks first. These "small wins" will give you a
sense of achievement, and will make you feel more positive and less overwhelmed
by the larger project or goal that you are working towards.
Tips 4:Break Your Work into Little Steps
Breaking procrastination-worthy projects down into smaller steps is a well-known and effective procrastination-busting technique. It can be much easier to begin tackling a project that you know you can complete quickly, and once you've taken a few initial steps in the right direction, you can keep moving more easily and continue until you're finished. (As you complete each step, you'll likely feel more energized and motivated to complete more.)
Tips 5:Reward Yourself
Tips 6:Drop the perfectionism
Perfectionism is an all-or-nothing mentality: Something is either perfect, or it is a failure. People with perfectionistic tendencies tend to wait until things are perfect in order to proceed—so, if it's not perfect, you cannot be finished. Or if it is not the perfect time, you believe you can't start. This all-or-nothing mentality can hold you back from starting or completing tasks.
Instead, focus on being better than perfect. This means to
still strive for excellence, creating excellence, or setting yourself up with
excellent conditions, but at the same time, you focus on getting the job done.
Tips 7:Change your environment
Your environment can help or hinder your productivity. Beware especially of technology, such as your email or messenger that keeps pinging to let you know someone has reached out. Social media, internet “research” that leads you far off track, and phone calls can lead to procrastination.
So try this: During your scheduled block of time for working
on a particular task, close your email and IM, turn off your phone (or at least
set it on “Do Not Disturb” and put it out of sight), and don’t let yourself get
on the web until you have completed the task, or hold off any necessary
internet searches until the end.
Tips 8: 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.
Tips 9:Get a partner
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.
Tips 10:Take breaks
Tips 11:Cut Distractions
You’ve wrestled with procrastination all morning, and although it was tough, you finally made a start!
… and then you get an Instagram notification, pick up your phone, and you’re back to square one.
Distractions can be stressful and costly.
In fact, Dr. Gloria Mark, professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, has found that it takes an average of 23 minutes to fully regain focus on a task after being distracted.
In my experience, it was more like 23 hours…
Either way, when you consider that notifications can interrupt us every few minutes, it’s no wonder so many people struggle to stop procrastinating.
So, you must cut distractions mercilessly, like a pirate on a rampage.
For example, turn your phone off, wrap it in a sock, put it in a sealable plastic box, give it to someone, and tell them to hide it until you’ve done your task.
No joke.
What’s more, if you have to work on your computer still, you
can also use apps and tools to block distracting websites and apps, such as
Freedom StayFocusd, SelfControl, and Rescue Time.
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