The Beginner’s Guide to Beating Procrastination
Before you set the goal of becoming more productive, you should first stop anything that’s making you procrastinate.
Procrastination is one of the biggest obstacles to getting things done and it can cause some serious damage once it becomes a constant state of mind.
To procrastinate is to listen to the voice in your head telling you why now is not the right time to complete a certain task and suggesting to you what else you could be doing instead. It’s easy to listen to it and the more you do it, the more this turns into a habitual behavior. Until you end up keeping yourself busy with everything else (often bad habits and unproductive activities) but the one thing you should be getting done.
Let’s see what you can do about it. Here are some tips for those who are new to the battle with procrastination.
1. Analyze why you procrastinate.
There’s a deeper reason behind this bad habit that ruins your productivity. The sooner you get to it, the bigger the chance to take action and become more productive.
Maybe it’s fear of failure. You could be imagining the worst that can happen so you avoid starting a new project.
Or you look at the bigger picture which scares you as you don’t know where to start or how long this might take.
Another possible reason is perfectionism. If you only allow yourself to work on something when you know you will do your best, then you might postpone working on the rest of the things on your list.
Once you know the ‘why’ behind your harmful behavior, it’s time to do something about it.
Fear of failure takes a shift in your mindset to be dealt with. Understand that you’ll never know how things might turn out until you give it a try. And you owe it to yourself to always give things a try. Every time you start working on a task, you’re taking a tiny risk. Yes, you might fail. But look at it as a learning experience that will help you perform better next time.
If the bigger picture scares you, take your time to write down a detailed plan on what to do exactly to complete your project. Then, focus on the first step only and start from there. Now it seems easy and doable.
If you’re a perfectionist, try to let go of this illusion. Understand that you too have limits and your expectations might be too high.
2. Track your reactions.
To beat procrastination, you first need to control your mind and how it reacts to it. Awareness is key when trying to break a bad habit. Start noticing when procrastination occurs and see how it feels.
Let it be for a while and feel the resistance that brings and what the first thing your brain tells you to do is. It’s usually to listen to the voice telling you to get this done later.
Write it down. Track when during the day it happens and after or before what activities.
The more you do that exercise, the better you’ll get at recognizing when procrastination is trying to take over. That’s a big step in the right direction as it helps you come back to the present moment and say ‘no’ to it.
3. Focus on starting.
Make it as easy as possible for you to start getting things done. Forget about how long the activity is going to take you, what you need to do next, whether or not you feel like you’re ready, the possibility of doing it wrong, etc.
All these are reasons to procrastinate. But if you make it impossible to say ‘no’ to the one action you plan for today, then the procrastinator within has no power over you.
The beginning is the hardest. But what if you made it as quick and simple as possible?
If you set a new life goal, for instance, let the very first step be to write it down. The next day, repeat it out loud. After that, break it down into smaller actions and plan when to do each.
When your mind is given a task that takes a minute or less, it doesn’t even need to think about it, it just completes it on autopilot. The more you do that, the easier it gets. With each, you feel more comfortable with the whole project or goal, and soon you can take a few steps on a daily basis without feeling overwhelmed.
4. Set deadlines.
Deadlines can be helpful. If we aren’t talking about a work project or assignment for college, then you’ll be the one setting the deadline.
That creates urgency and you’re more likely to complete what you planned to.
In fact, some experts suggest setting a shorter deadline just in case. Usually, that makes you twice as productive and you feel even more accomplished once you meet it.
5. Give yourself reminders.
Reminding yourself of the things you need to do each day together with the exact time you should be working on them is a practical way to beat procrastination.
Do that by having a to-do list, using an app and setting reminders. Sometimes, when we’re busy it’s easy to forget to check what’s left for the day. That’s why a notification on your phone can help a lot.
When you see it, and when you’ve made sure you’ve broken down large tasks into smaller ones, you will get it done immediately.
6. Reward yourself.
Motivation is key to being more productive. Procrastinating is tempting, but not if you have the right reason not to do it and complete your task instead.
Think of that in advance so that when procrastination hits you can remind yourself of why you started and why you want to finish this now.
Plan your reward. Treat yourself once a project is completed but also give yourself smaller rewards for each completed milestone.
These tips will help you deal with procrastination once and for all even if you’ve been struggling with it since you can remember. Take a deep breath and start small!
