How Do I Stop Procrastinating?

Do you divide any task that you do into multiple parts?

While working, do you always stay in a single position or environment?

Do you create a specific schedule to complete tasks efficiently?

Do you have a lot of distractions around you that make it difficult to work?

Do you have a work buddy?

Do you change your goals from time to time?

Do you always complicate things by setting extreme goals?

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.

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.

Create a Detailed Timeline with Specific Deadlines. Having just 1 deadline for your work is like an invitation to procrastinate. Break down your project, then create an overall timeline with specific deadlines for each small task.

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.

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.

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. Take some time to re-define your goals and get away from work to get your mind to clear up.

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.

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.