What is procrastinating? Procrastination, they say, is the thief of time. In many of my recent posts, I have consistently talked about the need to utilize this period for self-development. And one of the ways to develop yourself is to expunge bad habits and replace them with good habits. One of the bad habits that have persistently ravaged even the greatest of humans globally is procrastination.
Have you ever postponed what you were supposed to do to another time for no reason at all? Have you ever been overcome by a silly feeling of laxity even when there is so much to do? Have you ever told yourself “well, I think there is enough time on my hands so, I will do this and that later”? If your reply to at least two of those questions is a yes, then you most certainly might be suffering from procrastination.
When you do the right things at the right time, you get the right results but when you don’t, the reverse is usually the case. If you find yourself always thinking of so much time at your disposal to carry out a task, you may just be one of the procrastinators.
Procrastination is a time and priority devourer that goes beyond always failing to do the right thing at the right time. It is the fundamental cause of not being able to beat deadlines, perform tasks properly, or at your best performance.
This is because people’s performances reduce when they work under pressure and this is what procrastination does. It makes you pick out your least important and tasking priorities first and leave out your important and topmost priority for later.
The aftermath of procrastination is usually stressful as a result of forcing the body and brain to work at a capacity that is too high, fatigue, and disappointment which comes from the failure to meet deadlines and a very low-performance spirit. Procrastination is a key opposition to success.
Success is when opportunity meets preparedness and a procrastinating mind hardly ever prepares before time. If you closely examine successful people, you’ll realize that a bulk of them do not gamble with their time. They do what needs to be done when it needs to be done and get the best results because they hardly work on their toes.
Working on your toes simply means to work under pressure and this can be avoided with the so many helpful procrastination remedies I’m about to teach you.
Roll up your sleeves… We’ve got work to do…
1. Resolve Any Potential Emergency
First on my list of how to stop procrastinating is your ability to resolve any potential emergency. Emergencies spring up at just anytime; I mean, that is why they are called emergencies, right? Well, I do agree that there are times when you can not predict what happens but 90% of the time, you can! And if you decide to ignore what needs to be done on the basis of procrastination, that is on you.
2. Trick Your Mind To Take Action Immediately
Truth is, there is absolutely no pill that will make you take the action now. You just have to do it. I remember having a task to do from one of my mentors a few years back. Although the task was a bit difficult, I was eager to achieve it and show him that I was willing to be like him and actually be more.
The flames of my excitement died down after about three days. Slowly, procrastination began to creep in. I started ignoring the fact that a job needed to be done and instead of getting the job done, I was focused on some other things that were less important.
I was so deep in the procrastination that I lost count of the days and literally just go into every day telling myself “Oh! There’s still time! I will finish up tomorrow.” But “tomorrow” never came until a few hours to the deadline for submission.
Now, I had to face the consequences of my actions. Thankfully, I was able to submit the task. However, due to the fact that it was done under pressure, I ended up submitting a work that was of low quality. That singular event taught me a lot of life lessons regarding the thief called procrastination.
Starting your work will take you towards achieving your goals. It might be slow, but with consistency, you will get there. You need to realize that the ball is and will always be in your court. No one will force you to achieve what you are supposed to achieve. You just need to look at procrastination in the face and kill it!
3. Outsource Or Delegate The Duty To Someone Else
Yes! This is another effective way to kill procrastination. Instead of just sitting and worrying about the task you are procrastinating on, you could delegate that duty to someone. Giving the task to someone would help you ease yourself of the stress that comes with thinking about the undone task all the time.
And as a matter of fact, thinking about the undone task actually does more harm than good. This is because, in the process of procrastinating and thinking about the undone tasks, you will never come up with any viable solution, in other words, you will still remain unproductive and what that does in your psyche is to make the problem look bigger.
So, instead of making the problem look bigger, I think it’s best you give it out to someone. On a personal note, this is one of the best ways I learned how to stop procrastinating.
4. Make A Strategy When You Are Feeling Motivated
Yes! When you are feeling hyped and motivated, feel free to draw out a strategy on how you intend to crush your next task. Now, why is drawing a plan important? Procrastination is less likely to occur if you already have a plan to follow. Most of the people who actually battle procrastination are mostly people without plans. So, never be caught unprepared.
There are times when you feel really motivated to do something or carry out a task, at those times, you might now have the required equipment to it, but does that mean you should not do anything at all? no! At such a time, you can draw a strategy for when you will have the materials.
At times when you feel motivated, ensure that you seal that motivation. How would you do that? Write down for what you are feeling motivated and start with a headline for you task. If you do not do it, it will vanish and your mind will again return to its original comfort zone.
5. Revise Your Working Habits
In your journey to knowing how to stop procrastinating, you need to revise your working habits. Your procrastination might be as a result of your working habits. Your working habits are some of the things you do consciously or unconsciously while working. These habits are capable of making you productive or leaving you completely unproductive.
Well, I will not tell you what good working habits are because the definition of good is pretty relative and what I find good, might not be what you find good. Nonetheless, I will tell you a few bad working habits that can help grow procrastination in you. Here they are:
1. Having A Messy Desk
A work environment that is not properly arranged will not aid productivity at all. Having a desk that’s scattered and filled with both useful and useless things would only promote laziness on your end and fuel the procrastination.
2. Ignoring Your Body Language
We all know when we need rest. We hear it. We feel it. Your body has a way of communicating with you. Sometimes, you ignore, other times you do not listen at all. Whatever your case is, you need to correct it. Start paying attention to your body language.
You are most definitely not going to be productive when you are tired and so the best thing to do at such a time is not to force yourself to be productive! What you need at that time is a good rest and trust me, by the time you’re up, you will be feeling refreshed and re-energized so much you can take up your tasks.
3. Being A Social Media Addict
Now, in as much as social media has changed the game of working, they still have the capability to make you procrastinate. It’s good to make posts of yourself having fun, but the problem comes when you start checking Instagram or Twitter 20 times a day!
At that point, you are battling an addiction and you should be more worried about fighting that because if you do not, you would be given more chance to procrastinate.
6. Take Out The Tasks That Are Not Important
Yup! You have to filter whatever you must put in your list of important things. Be honest with yourself enough to see if there are goals or tasks that you can actually take out so you can be focused on other things on your list.
There are tasks that you can do without in a day, like checking your emails multiple times a day, chatting with an old pal, watching the television and so many more.
These tasks are good on their own but you have to come to terms with the fact that you do not need them at the moment. What you need is to finish up with your tasks. It is important to make your working habits and schedule as clutter-free as possible.
7. Use The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro technique is a time management technique that is accepted and used globally as regards knowing how to stop procrastinating. It was developed in the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo. It was named after the Italian word for Tomato. Francesco made use of a kitchen timer with the semblance of tomato and thus named the method after the tomato.
The technique aims to provide the user with maximum focus and creative freshness, thereby allowing them to complete their tasks faster and with less mental stress.
Here’s how the process works:
For every project you do throughout the day, your budget time is 25 minutes. And as you them, you budget your time into short increments while periodically taking breaks. Each session of work is called a Pomodoro. After four sessions, which equals 100 minutes of work time, you can then take a break.
According to the official Pomodoro website: “You will probably begin to notice a difference in your work or study process within a day or two. True mastery of the technique takes from seven to twenty days of constant use”.
8. Dissect Your Big Tasks Into Micro-Tasks
From personal observation, I have noticed that one of the major causes of procrastination is the fact that in the mind of the procrastinator, the project looks too big and so they defer it till later. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always end well. In fact, 99% of the time, you would only end up regretting the postponement.
So, what do you do when you have huge tasks ahead of you and you are fighting the urge to procrastinate? You split the macro-task into micro-tasks. When the major tasks are reduced into smaller and minor tasks, it becomes easier to actually deal with it.
9. Make Use Of The Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower Matrix is another time management technique that thrives on dividing your tasks into four quadrants. Procrastination is a product of too many tasks and the lack of inspiration to do any. But when you actually divide your tasks based on urgency and importance, you will become more productive.
10. Attach All Tasks To A Reward
You can beat procrastination by attaching a reward to the completion of your tasks. When you have a reward attached to your tasks, you do them with the hope of claiming the reward much later. This is one of the most effective methods in knowing how to stop procrastinating.
So, there you have it, 10 ways to stop procrastinating. These are working strategies for overcoming procrastination. Truth is that there are so many procrastination articles out there that tell you how to combat laziness but you need to be sure that they are working tips. As you go about in your pursuit of overcoming procrastination, I sincerely hope that you get to achieve your goals.
FOR YOU:
Hey there! Thank you for reading up until this point. I hope you have learned a thing or two about how to stop procrastinating. I would like you to imbibe these habits and actually use them to fight that danger called procrastination.
Feel free to reach out to me through the comment section. Let me know your thoughts on each of the points. Do you think something is missing in the list? Love and miracles…
Pin this for later!
