How to overcome procrastination

How to Stop Procrastinating in College: 10 Effective Tips

Have you ever felt that a lifetime will not suffice to get all your assignments done? Like with millions of other students, it made you feel depressed and helpless. Your will power and self-control shrank, and each next hour of procrastination made the result more unattainable.

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What was the only thing you could do in such moments? Yes, it was doing anything and everything that had nothing to do with the assignments. Some of procrastination examples are video games, web surfing, sleeping, and domestic chores. Day by day, the tasks are hoarding up, but things are still where they started. This article by Custom Writing experts will save you from this vicious circle and show how to do the opposite of procrastination. There are practical ways to use it to your avail.

1. ❗ Procrastination: Definition

Procrastination means that you postpone an activity. The delayed task needs immediate attention and is highly urgent. It does not usually mean that you decide to take a rest rather than work. It is about doing something else instead of what needs to be done as soon as possible.

2. 😠 Why Do I Procrastinate?

Psychology suggests several theories for why people procrastinate. However, none of them is considered a universal one. It is a good practice to find out your procrastination style. Knowing what is wrong is halfway to finding a solution.

3. 🛑 How to Stop Procrastinating in College?

If you relate to one or several of the reasons above, you need to change something. Procrastination does not equal idleness. It drains your mental strength and time for things you enjoy doing. Here are some pieces of advice to stop procrastinating in your studies.

3. 😃 The Benefits of Procrastination

All this time you were looking for techniques to tell you how to avoid procrastination. But that is a long and challenging process—which we don’t like. The philosopher John Perry developed the term “structured procrastination.” The main goal of his theory is to get benefits from the acts of laziness. Even procrastinating at work isn’t as bad as you think.

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How to Overcome Procrastination

9 Surprisingly Effective Strategies (Backed by Science!)

I procrastinated on writing this article.

I know that it’s a topic that my readers will love and that my ideas will be immediately valuable to them. And therefore, writing and publishing it will help me achieve my long-term goals for this blog.

However, I couldn’t get started. I couldn’t force myself to put my butt in my chair and start moving my fingers.

The physical act of writing is simple and easy. But, in my head, it seemed so hard. It was easier to keep laying on my couch listening to podcasts and eating food.

The more I procrastinated the more anxiety I felt. I was obsessed with finishing this article, but I felt some psychological barrier preventing me from doing so.

I started making excuses to myself. I was afraid that it wouldn’t be a good article. That writing it would be a waste of time or that my ideas would sound stupid or wouldn’t be useful to my readers.

Then, I started feeling guilt and shame about procrastinating. That made me even less motivated to start. And finally, I started justifying my procrastination: “I’ve gone a week without writing, what’s another day?”

Procrastination is the voluntary but counterproductive delay of an intended action. More simply, it means delaying or postponing a task, despite benefits of completing the task and/or costs of failing to complete the task.

When procrastinating, it often feels like there’s a psychological force preventing you from following through on what you set out to achieve.

Here are a few of the things that I frequently procrastinate:

The negative consequences of procrastinating on important work are well-documented. While it’s hard to get started on a project, doing so can have great benefits in the future. Your future self would be glad you started now. In addition, getting stuff done sooner rather than later frees your mind and your schedule to pursue new opportunities.

However, there are also instances when it’s actually beneficial to procrastinate. Procrastinating may not be the symptom of a character flaw or moral shortcoming like it’s commonly made out to be in the latest listicle of productivity hacks. Rather, procrastination may be an adaptive strategy. By understanding the latest research into the psychology behind why we procrastinate, we can develop strategies for beating procrastination that actually work.

Why do we procrastinate?

“Know thy self, know thy enemy.” – Sun Tzu

Beating procrastination requires beating the underlying psychology that encourages us to procrastinate — that force that compels us to keep sitting on the couch instead of doing the work. Beating the underlying psychology requires knowing the underlying psychology.

I had previously assumed that the desire to procrastinate was a flaw — an irrational behavior that hurts our productivity. It turns out that procrastinating is sometimes beneficial. Our desire to procrastinate may actually be warranted or may be a signal that we need to make a change.

The challenge is differentiating between which feelings are rational and which are irrational. Here we will explore how and why our brains feel compelled to procrastinate. In the following section, I’ll share a few strategies to counter the compulsions one has that are irrational.

1. Sometimes procrastination pays off

However, this was far more prevalent pre-modern civilization. Today, it is far less likely that our lender will disappear or that our responsibility will simply go away or become ineffectual. Therefore, procrastination is less likely to pay off today than it was in pre-civilized times.

2. Your ego is trying to protect you from failure

“Complex planning is a pre-verbal adaptation, so it’s not going to manifest itself as a voice in your head exclaiming ‘plan rejected!’ Instead, it’s going to be more intuitive: a biochemical cascade designed to steer you away from a bad decision; something, perhaps, that feels like a lack of motivation to get started.”

In a sense, where you lie on the spectrum between feeling motivated and feeling compelled to procrastinate is a result of a risk-reward calculation your brain makes about your ability to succeed. For example, if that business idea you’ve been procrastinating on getting started is not actually a good idea, it would be wise to keep procrastinating. If you were to invest your time and money into a bad idea, it would be quite costly. You would be better off not testing your status.

When we fail, we lose status with ourselves and our peers. Thus, in some such instances, your procrastination may be your ego trying to protect you. Sometimes that fear is warranted, and sometimes it is not.

3. We’re not used to abstract concepts or long-term thinking

A study published by The National Center for Biotechnology Information further supports this theory:

“Impulsivity was a useful trait for early humans (hunter-gatherers) who needed to satisfy their basic survival needs quickly. In those preagricultural days, there may have been little reason to spend time creating long-term plans for the distant future; in fact, taking too much time thinking about the future could sometimes have been harmful if it meant distraction from satisfying immediate needs.”

It wasn’t necessary for our ancestors to make the complex decisions that we have to make today. As our economy has shifted from a hunter-gatherer to agriculture and technologically-driven system, our environment has shifted from Immediate Return to Delayed Return.

However, our brains haven’t kept pace with that shift. “Scientists suggest this absence of necessary impulsivity is what allows tasks that don’t threaten our lives to lead us to distraction. Since we don’t have vicious, sharp-toothed animals keeping us on high-alert, our natural sense of impulsivity leads us astray,” Weller says.

In a sense, when you procrastinate, you are opting for the instant gratification, which was appropriate in the Immediate Return Environment, as opposed to opting for the future gratification that would be rewarded for accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. Humans value immediate rewards over future rewards.

We also haven’t evolved to fully comprehend some of the more abstract concepts that are prevalent in our lives today. Spending four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars for a “degree” that would increase your earnings potential in future decades is not something our ancestors would have ever considered. As a result, our brains today are hesitant to spend so much time and energy on such a project. So, we procrastinate, despite the potential upsides.

5. We’re not living in line with our values

You’re likely to experience deep procrastination if, for example, an excessive workload is hurting your physical or mental health, or preventing you from spending time on other things you care about such as relationships or music, or you’re not actually interested in a career within the field you’re majoring.

It’s difficult to allocate time and energy to something that doesn’t align with your values. You’d be likely to procrastinate on a research product for a Republican think tank if you’re a Democrat.

According to Garth Sundem (via Psychology Today ), procrastinators tend to be more intrinsically motivated, as opposed to being motivated by material achievement:

“More and more, research is showing that procras­tination isn’t a defect in ability or personality but rather a disconnect between the demands of a task and what motivates the procrastinator. Procrastinators are intrinsically and not ex­trinsically motivated, meaning that neither tempting them with rewards nor warning them the sky will fall is likely to up their motivation to the threshold of action.”

You’re more likely to procrastinate if your goals aren’t in line with your values. In this case, “procrastination is not your enemy. It is instead a constructive source of criticism,” Newport says.

How to Overcome Procrastination

You now have a better understanding of the psychology behind your desire to procrastinate. Awareness of how your brain works is the first and most important step to overcome procrastination. You are now better equipped to counter the irrational impulses to procrastinate and listen to the rational reasons to procrastinate. Here are nine strategies and several action steps to do so.

1. Recalculate your probabilities to account for modern times

When determining whether to complete a task or to procrastinate, your brain runs a cost-benefit analysis that incorporates an estimate of the probability that you won’t ever need to complete the task. Because our brains have evolved from environments where there was a more significant probability that we wouldn’t need to complete the task, and if you overestimate the probability that you won’t need to complete the task, you won’t be motivated to complete it until the last minute.

So, make a more accurate estimate of the probability that you won’t need to complete the task based on modern times and modern individual expectations. Be conservative and take into account that things often take longer than expected.

Here are four action steps for re-calculating the probability of your obligation:

2. Develop a better plan

If your ego believes you may fail at your goal, it will try to protect you to avoid losing status with yourself or your peers. This effort manifests itself as a lack of motivation, and, therefore, procrastination. In some cases, you may need to adjust your goal, such as starting a business so you can quit your job. In other cases, you just need a better plan. Cal Newport explains the importance of having a viable strategy:

“The evolutionary perspective on procrastination, by contrast, says we delay because our frontal lobe doesn’t see a convincing plan behind our aspiration. The solution, therefore, is not to muster the courage to blindly charge ahead, but to instead accept what our brain is telling us: our plans need more hard work invested before they’re ready.”

Here are six ways you can upgrade your plan to start a business and quit your job:

3. Bring future consequences and benefits into the present

Our brains aren’t good at thinking long-term. We prefer immediate rewards. Bringing the future consequences of procrastinating and the future benefits of beating procrastinating into the present can counter that. The future consequences need to become present consequences and the future benefits need to become present benefits.

For example, if in a year, you still haven’t started blogging, the consequence is that you won’t be any closer to your goals. You won’t see an immediate benefit from blogging, but if you do start, you can grow a large reader base within a year if you do it right.

Here are six ways to counteract your brain’s tendency to miscalculate long-term costs and benefits:

4. Make it easier to start and harder to procrastinate

Humans seek pleasure and avoid pain. We seek the path of least resistance to accomplish these ends. This is what Lisle refers to as “The Motivational Triad.” We want the most possible for the least possible because there’s a limited amount of time in the day and we have a limited amount of energy to spend.

This knowledge yields four strategies for beating procrastination and getting work done:

Here are some ways to execute on those strategies:

5. Work less

Overworking can have many negative consequences. In the context of procrastination, allocating too much of your time to work throws your life out of balance with your values. You won’t have as much time for your friends or interests outside of work which are likely more important to you. Cal Newport describes how overworking can lead to resentment and procrastination:

“If you want to cure deep procrastination you have to remove the source of resentment. And this means doing less; much less. …The light schedule takes away their fatigue, and a true interest in their work blossoms again.”

Counterintuitively, working less can help your productivity over the long-term. But it’s surprisingly hard to work less. It’s hard, in part, because we haven’t evolved to know exactly how much we need to work or how much money we need to make. We just want to survive and reproduce, and being anxious about work is more likely to help us achieve those ends.

Here are four ways to start the simple but hard process of working less:

6. Lower your expectations for being comfortable

Costs and benefits are partially subjective. A 9-5 job would probably feel like hell to someone who recently failed at starting a business. However, to someone in jail, working a 9-5 job would probably be a dream come true. It all comes down to expectations.

To expect that life will always be comfortable and easy is wishful thinking. If you expect life to always be comfortable and easy, you will inevitably be disappointed. If you expect life to be hard, you have the opportunity to be pleasantly surprised.

We didn’t evolve to always be happy and comfortable. A little anxiety and hard work is a natural part of life.

Working is hard. Life is full of hard stuff. Setting expectations accordingly makes pushing through it anyways a lot less painful — potentially even enjoyable.

7. Find meaning in the work

We used to get status from hunting and gathering. Now we get status from graduating from college. It’s far more challenging for our brains to understand the importance of the latter than it is the former.

To counter your brain’s challenges comprehending abstract ideas and to stay motivated to do work that you’re not intrinsically motivated to do, think deeply about the real meaning of the work. Think about the long-term career, financial, or altruistic goal that you’re trying to achieve.

You’re not just chopping wood, you’re chopping wood so that you can provide for your family. You’re not just bookkeeping, you’re saving up money so you can start a business or donate to charity. You’re not just starting a business to make money, you’re doing it to help your customers or solve an important problem in the world.

8. Meditate

Meditation helps you become aware of your thoughts. Becoming aware of your thoughts is an essential step to ignoring the thoughts that aren’t useful.

You don’t have to go on a big fancy retreat in order to mediate. You can start with just 5-10 minutes per day. You can also make a habit of being mindful throughout your day. Simply complete the steps below when you find yourself procrastinating:

Don’t try to make the thoughts go away. Don’t feel guilty for having them. Just acknowledge that they are present in your mind. Say “hello” to the thoughts. Then, choose the best course of action. Do the work.

9. Live in line with your values

Doing something that is not in line with, or even opposite to, your values can be emotionally challenging, which leads to procrastination. In this case, your desire to procrastinate may be a good sign that you shouldn’t do it and instead should find something to do that’s in line with your values.

Here are a few ways to discover your values:

Your values will probably change over time as you learn and grow. I cared a lot more about novelty and excitement in my twenties than I do in my thirties. Consider your values on an ongoing basis. Never be afraid to reassess.

Living in line with your values will keep you happy, motivated, and productive.

Conclusion

Stop waiting until the last minute to do what you need to do. Procrastination adds stress and often leads to lower-quality work.

Start doing the things that you know you need to do in order to achieve your long-term goals. You’ll be glad you did three years from now

But remember, sometimes procrastinating is a rational strategy. Sometimes, it’s best to do more than just wait. When you’re not living in line with your values or you’re taking on too much risk on a project that’s likely to fail, it’s best not to do it at all.

Be aware of how our brains have evolved and how that can lead to thinking that’s not appropriate for our modern environment. Think critically about whether you should procrastinate, do what you need to do, or develop a new plan. Motivation is not a viable alternative to living within your values or doing something that has a reasonable chance of succeeding. Overcoming procrastination is not helpful if what you’re procrastinating is going to do more harm than good.

When you’re living in line with your values and doing something that’s actually beneficial to you, make harder to procrastinate and easier to start and finish. Find meaning in the work, even the mundane work, and take pride in exercising willpower and pushing through your desire to procrastinate.

23 Effective Ways How To Overcome Procrastination

Procrastinating on your work and put it off until a later time is one of the most common killers of success.

I believe that everyone has dreams and goals that they wanted to achieve in their lives, but because of their destructive habit of putting things off, their dreams remain dreams and they never hit most of their goals.

If you think that you procrastinate because you are lazy, it is not. It is just that you don’t really know how to motivate yourself and get things done.

And if you can master yourself and make yourself productive at every moment, you will be able to get a lot more things done. You will be able to accomplish a lot of your goals and make a lot of your dreams a reality.

Today, we are going to discuss about the 23 effective ways how to overcome procrastination. These tips are powerful and you can use them immediately to stop your procrastination. However, in order to make things work, you have to first understand…

Why Do You Procrastinate?

You need to understand why you put things off and why do you procrastinate. When you know your reason, you can then use the right strategy and apply the correct solution to make it right.

For example, if you procrastinate because you always get distracted, then you will know that creating a time-block is something that will work for you.

Here’s another example, if you always have no motivation to start on your work, putting yourself on the line and psyched up yourself will be more appropriate solutions than to create a distraction-free environment.

You see, you have to know what went wrong only then you can adopt the right technique to stop procrastinating.

And I believe that there’s a solution to everything. We have all heard about how people able to transform from a procrastinator to productive person that gets things done. And we have heard about people who have changed their lives from living in poverty to living a rich and wealthy life.

If you truly wanted to get rid of procrastination, you will eventually do it. When there is a will, there will be a way to do it. It depends on how strong your desire is going to be.

So here are the 23 ways how to stop procrastination…

1. Put Yourself on the Line

Here’s what you can do to force yourself to get into the work, put yourself on the line where you will be in a situation that there’s no other options but to do it.

It may sound ridiculous at times, but this strategy works. For example, you can commit to yourself that if you did not get the work done, you will have to eat a can of dog food.

Read more about how Sylvester Stallone put himself on the line and created outstanding success in his acting career.

2. Create a Motivating Environment

Environment can stimulate your mood. If you go to the library, your mood will be different. If you go to Starbucks, your emotional state will be different. Therefore, different environment will create different types of motivation.

Some people prefer to work in Starbucks, while some people prefer to work in the office where there are others working together as well. So what environment will drive you?

If you need a quiet place to focus on your work, then find yourself the place or create such an environment. Shape your environment so that it will work for you, not against you.

3. Commit to the First Step

There’s a lot to say about building momentum. Do you know that you don’t really have to tackle the whole task at once? You just need to commit to take the first step.

If your task is to write an article, all you need to commit yourself to is to write the first sentence. You don’t have to commit to write the whole article. This is because when you take the first small step, you are actually creating the momentum to go forward and do the rest of the work.

Just like if you want to get to the gym, all you need to commit yourself to do is to get changed. When you are in your sports attire, the momentum will build up and you will be in the mood to hit the gym.

4. Use the Pep-Talk

Pep-talk works and it is very powerful method to get you motivated to do something. This is why a lot of athletes are using this technique today.

Look at the sports industry. Before the match begins, the coach will gather the players around and give the motivating pep-talk to them. You can do the same to yourself.

In the business world, a lot of successful leaders used this technique as well to motivate their staffs. I would suggest you to check out YouTube to learn more there.

5. Get Distraction-Free

Are you always being distracted and then procrastinate on what needs to get done? If this is why you put things off, then get yourself a distraction-free environment.

Switch off your phone, disconnect from the internet, lock yourself in the room, turn off the TV or the radio, etc to get rid of things that will distract you.

There are many ways how you can do this. If you need to work in front of your computer with internet connection, use tools and plug-ins that can block you from surfing sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

6. Break the Habit

Procrastination is a pattern. If you consistently procrastinate on something at a regular hour and at a common place all the time, then you know that there is a pattern that will lead you into that. So just break the habit.

One of the most common patterns that you can clearly see is in the workplace. When you reach the office, what do you do the first thing? Some people will check out their email and lose the whole hour there. Some people will check out Facebook once they reached their office.

So what you can do is to break the pattern. Next time, instead of check emails or checking updates in Facebook, try to do something different that will interrupt the pattern and thus, break the habit.

For instance, you can write down a to-do list when you reach your office and straight away tackle the first item on the list after that.

7. Create the Habit

This can be closely related to the tips above in handling procrastination. When you break a habit, you need to form a new one. You need to fill in the “empty hole” in your mind.

If you want to build a productive habit and get things done, here’s what you can do. Try to do your work in the same time, at the same place and in the same environment. This will help you to form a new habit after couple of weeks.

It is exactly like how you take bath, how you eat and how you brush your teeth. Every morning right after you wake up, you will brush your teeth, the same way and the same pattern. It has become a habit so strong that you can do it automatically without thinking and you cannot miss out for not doing it.

8. Reward Yourself

Do you reward yourself after you get the task done? If you don’t, you should practice this. Every time right after you gets something done, give a pat to yourself. Praise yourself or use a fist pump and say yes.

You want to make yourself feel good about it so that you will want to do it again. I have a friend who has a treadmill in his house but he didn’t’ really use it. And because he loves to watch drama, he will reward himself with the drama while running on the treadmill.

There are many ways how you can reward yourself. You just need to be creative about it. And you don’t really need to give yourself big reward every time.

9. Engage a Supportive Partner

Another powerful strategy to end procrastination is to get a buddy who will support you and monitor your progress. They said that getting to the gym is difficult, how about if you can find a buddy to go together with you?

Don’t you think that you will be more tempted to do and you will be more driven to do it? Of course you would.

So get yourself a supportive partner. However, make sure you get the right person who will support you and not dragging you down instead.

10. Use Time Block

This is truly a powerful way to end procrastination. You block out a time say from 9am to 10am to do the things that you want to get done. And within this one hour, you cannot do any other thing except putting your full focus into getting the task done.

I personally find that this is a very powerful strategy and I have applied this technique and get a lot of articles written, such as this blog post. Usually I will time block my morning time to write articles.

Find a way how you can use this technique too. Schedule a time to get a certain task done. Remember, you cannot do any other thing except the task that you have time blocked for.

11. Visualize Your Dreams

Visualization is a great tool to get you motivated. When you imagine about achieving your dreams, living in your dream house, driving your dream car, having fun and love with your family, etc, you will feel more driven and wanted to get things done.

If you always find yourself lack of motivation to do things, this could be a great solution for you. In fact, all the professional athletes used this method to drive up their motivation and perfect their skills.

Yes, you read that right, visualization helps you to practice in your mind and make things a reality. This is what has been taught through the Law of Attraction. You can also make visualization easier for you by creating a vision board.

12. Create Milestones and Realistic Deadlines

Do you track your progress and know what your standing is right now? Do you know how far you are from your goals? Some people feel lazy and have no motivation to work on their dreams and goals simply because they lack the milestones to track their progress and they have no deadlines, or unrealistic deadlines.

When you have no idea where you are, how would you have the motivation to do it? For example, if you want to lose weight but you never weight yourself and you don’t have any clear idea how much weight to lose and by when, trust me, you will never reach that goal.

On the other hand, some people have deadlines for what they do, but unrealistic ones. They set their goal to make a million dollar within a week. It is not that it is impossible, just that it may not be probable for most people.

Therefore, their mind sabotage and they already know that it is not really possible for them. And when they sabotage themselves, they will never have the desire to work on that goal.

13. Get Psyched Up

Here’s what you can do, psyched up yourself before you start working on your task. Professional athletes will do this as well before their games.

Have you ever watched the movie Rocky? Where the song “Eye of the Tiger” is playing and Rocky is training hard? This song psyched up a lot of people and I believe when you hear it, you will instantly feel motivated as well.

So all you need to do is to listen to these uplifting songs and watch short motivational video to get yourself driven before you work on your task. Lack of motivation will not stop you, but a lack of will, will.

14. Make a Public Commitment

This is almost similar to putting yourself on the line. When you announce to the public and tell people what you are going to do and achieve, you will feel more pressure and tend to make it happen.

However, you have to make sure that you share with people who will support you instead of splashing cold water on your face. This is another way of creating commitment so that you will not back down and put things off.

So share your goals and your progress with a few of your friends or family members that will support you.

15. Revisit Your Purpose

Not feeling motivated? Maybe you have forgotten your purpose why you want to do it in the first place. It is said that if your reason for doing something is not strong enough, usually you will procrastinate and not do it.

Just like quit smoking; is your reason strong enough? If your health deteriorate because of smoking and do you think your desire to quit smoking will become stronger? You know the answer.

Thus, if you don’t have the motivation to do something, revisit your purpose. Find out why you want to do it in the first place.

16. Break It Down

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Some people may feel overwhelm with their tasks. If you feel that the task is too huge to tackle, break it down.

Just like you don’t have to write the whole book in one sitting, all you need to do is to write one page today. And how can you write a page? By joining the words and writing the sentences.

You have to understand that you just can’t get things done in one go. Rome was not built in a day. And you can’t build a successful business in just doing one thing. Understand that success is through repetition of right decisions and taking the right actions from time to time.

17. Engage the Automatic Mood

When it is time for you to do your task, what is in your mind? If you think, you will not do. So don’t think about it and just do it. Like a robot, you just do without thinking whether should you get it done.

Most people procrastinate because they think too much. They worry too much and they are afraid what ifs… So stop thinking and just do it. You have to put yourself into the mechanical mood and tackle the task automatically.

A very good example would be making cold calls. Some people may think that it is difficult or don’t know what to say. Well, to make it happen, you just need to pick up the phone and dial the number. This will put you into action mood and you will know what to say next.

18. Motivated by Fear

The next time before you want to put things off, think about all the consequences if you procrastinate on it. For instance, if you procrastinate on going to the gym, imagine that you will get fat, lack of energy, becomes unhealthy and all your friends may mock you.

When you think about the consequences of not doing the task, I’m sure you will feel the fear and wanted to take action right away.

Just make sure that you imagine the long-term consequences when you put things off.

19. Manage Your Little Voice

The reason most people procrastinate is because their little voices manage to talk them out and put things off. In other words, they fail to manage their little voices inside their head.

Think about it, when you put things off, what are you thinking in your head? You are rationalizing that it is alright to do it later. When you tell yourself this, you will end up procrastinating on the task that you suppose to get done.

So learn to master your little voice in your head. Use these voices to help you and grow, and not to make you procrastinate.

If you wanted to learn about managing your inner voice, read the book, “Little Voice Mastery“ from Blair Singer.

20. Outsource It

No motivation to do? Don’t like to do it? Then don’t do it, outsource it instead. Ask other people to do and in exchange of money or other things. If you hate washing the dishes, exchange the mundane work with your kids.

Of course, some work you just want to do it yourself. For those that you hate to do or sometimes feel like no motivation to do, just outsource it.

21. Make It a Challenge

Most people love challenge. When they are challenged, they tend to do things more seriously and they wanted to prove to others that they can do it. This is a very normal human drive. And you can make use of this drive to put yourself into action.

For example, you can challenge yourself that you will do the task for 1 month consistently. And if you succeed with that challenge, you will reward yourself with something you love.

The principle is similar to setting stretch and short goal that will stimulate you and make you think out of the box and make you driven.

22. Meditation

It is said that meditation can help you to better focus in your task at hand. Not only that, meditation can calm you as well.

You should really try this. You can practice meditation everyday or you can do it before you start working on your task.

If you don’t know how to meditate, learn it here.

23. Reduce Your Commitment

Sometimes more is not necessarily good. Less may be more at times. What this means is that when you are overwhelmed with to-do lists and things to tackle, you may end up with less productivity.

One way to make sure that you will get most of the important things done is to reduce your commitment and focus in what’s important.

Each morning, do the most important thing first before you start your day. You reduce your biggest commitment by tackling the biggest and most important task early in the morning.

Once you get the task done, you will feel lighter and you will feel satisfy. This way, you will be able to go through your day easier.

Conclusion

There are many techniques and methods to overcome procrastination. You have to understand the reason why you put things off in order to apply the right strategy to get rid of it.

Putting yourself on the line, get yourself psyched up, visualization and time block are powerful techniques that you may want to try out.

Of all the tips above, my favorite is to time block and to stop procrastination. What is your favorite? Let me know. 🙂

Hi there, this is Shawn. I inspire people to achieve their goals and dreams and to reach for higher success in life. If you want to learn more about me, kindly go to the About page. By the way, have you downloaded your FREE copy of The 90-90-1 Rule? Don’t forget to do so. Cheers. 🙂

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Beyond Time Management: Why We Really Procrastinate and How to Finally Stop

Understand the «why» behind your inability to start

Belle Beth Cooper

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I’ve read all the articles and listened to all the podcasts about procrastination. I’ve tried all the tricks—including literally trying to trick myself.

Sometimes hacks work. Sometimes an article about how bad a habit procrastination is will kick me into gear and help me get things done early for a change.

But it never lasts. I’ve never fully kicked procrastination to the curb. Even when I’m on a productive bent, I’m still a procrastinator at heart.

When I’d just about given up on ever curing my bad habit, I came across a theory of procrastination I’d never heard of, and it completely changed the way I think about procrastination.

The truth is, procrastination is more about our emotions than our tendencies for laziness or just being “bad at deadlines”. At its core, we procrastinate to keep ourselves happy in the moment —which makes complete sense, right? That is, until we’re pulling an all-nighter to meet that client deadline we had weeks to prepare for.

Understanding why we procrastinate allows us to develop effective strategies for getting started on our important projects now, rather than waiting for tomorrow. Here’s what I’ve discovered in my own journey to stop putting things off for later, and the concrete steps I’ve found along the way to address the root cause of my procrastination.

Why we procrastinate

Of course, the mood lift is inevitably short-term. Studies of college students have found the habit of putting things off only increases negative feelings later on. While procrastinators tended to be less stressed and healthier in the first school term, by the second term these results were actually reversed.

This brings us to the second key insight into why we procrastinate: research shows that our brains are actually wired to think about about our present and future selves as two separate people. That’s why we’re able to prioritize our present mood at the expense of our future well-being even though it’s an irrational choice in the long-term.

A study run by UCLA psychologist Hal Herschel and a team at Stanford University found that participants actually engaged different areas of the brain when they thought about their present selves versus their future selves. In fact, when people were told to think about themselves in ten years, their brain patterns closely resembled those observed when they were asked to think about celebrities they didn’t know.

This separation of present and future self encourages us to make different decisions about ourselves now and in the future. For instance, one study showed people asked to tutor other students would offer to do so less in the present, but would offer more of their time in the future.

To sum up the research, we procrastinate because our brains are wired to care more about our present comfort than our future happiness.

So what can we do about it?

How to overcome your procrastination habit

Based on the research, it’s clear that we have two ways of dealing with our procrastination:

Here are 8 concrete strategies you can start using today to address the root cause of your procrastination…

1. Make getting started ridiculously easy

To overcome our psychological aversion to uncomfortable tasks, Dr Pychyl suggests “[making] the threshold for getting started quite low” and just getting started. Often starting a task is the biggest hurdle.

For example, Dr. Pychyl says “A real mood boost comes from doing what we intend to do—the things that are important to us”. Knowing this, we can reason that although getting started might feel uncomfortable, we’re likely to feel much better once the task is done. Compare the mood boost of having done what you intended to do, to the disappointment and frustration of dealing with the consequences of procrastination later.

In fact, research shows that progress—no matter how small—can be a huge motivator to help us keep going.

My favorite trick for getting into a task I’m dreading, is to start with the mindset. I start by just thinking about the task for a while, until I’m drawn in and can’t help working on it.

If it’s a writing task, I might pull up the draft I need to edit and just sit and read over it. Soon I’ll find myself changing a word here and there, or fixing typos. Then I’ll think of a whole sentence I want to add. And suddenly I’m well into the task, without really pushing myself to do so.

If it’s coding I need to work on, I do a similar thing. I open the project in Xcode and just look at it for a while. My brain starts to get into the coding mindset as I read over what I’ve written before. I ease myself into the right mindset for this project just by gently immersing myself in it at first. Then I might remove or add a comment, or make a small change to the code. And before I know it I’m stuck into the work I need to get done.

Poet and author Mark McGuinness used this method to write a book :

A few months ago I just created a file in my book writing software and laid out the chapter headings, and just started playing around and rearranging them. And each time an idea came to me during the day, I just added a quick note inside each chapter. Recently I’ve been opening up the doc in the mornings, just looking at the table of contents, and just adding a few more notes here and there. It’s a slow ramp up where I just tell myself to add a few things here and there, no pressure.

When McGuinness wrote that paragraph, he’d already written 12,000 words of his book. “I haven’t really started writing it yet,” he said. “And since I’ve not been officially working on the book, resistance and procrastination hasn’t shown up for work either. It’s been fun.”

2. Do the right thing for the wrong reason

Ariely uses global warming as an example of a future problem. It’s hard to care about global warming because we don’t see the signs of it regularly, we don’t see people suffering, and it’s not going to affect us seriously until far in the future. But if you feel self-important when you drive a Toyota Prius, because it makes you feel like you’re a good person, and it shows others that you’re a good person, then you might be more likely to do so. You’d be doing the right thing (switching to a hybrid car) for the wrong reason (your self-image).

Ariely shares another story that illustrates this principle at work. When he contracted Hepatitis C in the hospital, he was put on an 18-month treatment plan. Three times every week for the whole 18 months, Ariely had to inject himself with a drug that treated his Hepatitis, but also made him nauseous and induced fever and vomiting.

Because his action was rewarded in the now every time, Ariely continued to do the right thing (inject the drug) for the wrong reason (so he could watch movies).

I’ve tried this myself in the past. I got hooked on the first season of the Serial podcast, which had new episodes released once per week. I never listened to Serial except when I was running, so whenever a new episode was released, I would get excited about going for a run (doing the right thing) because it meant I could listen to Serial (the wrong reason)—rather than because running is good for my health and fitness (the right reason).

3. Ask for help

When my work directly affects others, I find it much harder to accept the consequences of procrastinating.

To put this into practice, you could ask a friend or colleague to help you get started on something you’ve been putting off. Having someone else work with you can stave off the boredom and loneliness that make working alone a drag. And having someone else invested in the work can give you extra motivation to get it finished, even if they’re not around the whole time you’re working on it.

This can be particularly helpful when you’re stressed. Research has shown discussing your feelings of stress with someone else in a similar emotional state can ease your feelings of stress. So if you’re working with other people and you’re all worried about an upcoming deadline, try discussing the situation rather than internalizing your own concerns.

One MetaFilter user goes a step further with getting help from others:

In an emergency I actually get my husband to sit down with me and my laptop and he makes me explain to him what I want to say, watches me type it out, and then makes me explain the next part, and so on. Literally paragraph by paragraph. It stops me wandering off topic or getting distracted.

Although this seems extreme, a sympathetic colleague, mentor, friend, or sibling might be willing to help out if you don’t always rely on this approach.

4. Imagine the future

Although Ariely says we’re geared to think about now, and not the future, some studies have shown encouraging people to imagine the future can help them make better decisions now.

Pychyl calls this method “time travel”. He suggests, for instance, imagining as vividly as possible the idea of living on your current retirement savings, if saving for retirement is something you’ve been putting off.

Making the task of time travel more concrete can help its effectiveness. Pychyl suggests looking at a digitally aged photograph can help us more effectively imagine ourselves in the future, thus helping us make better decisions.

Another way to use this method is to realistically imagine how you’ll feel tomorrow, if you’re trying the old “I’ll feel like doing this tomorrow” excuse. Pychyl says it’s highly unlikely we will feel more motivated tomorrow so time traveling may help us realize this, and stop relying on the “tomorrow” excuse.

5. Reframe your task and its deadline

Have you ever tried to trick yourself to get your work done? I tried this many times—my favorite approach was to pretend my deadline was actually today, not tomorrow, so I’d get started earlier.

But it never worked.

I just couldn’t get past the fact that I was trying to lie to myself. The rest of my brain knew what I was saying was a lie, so why would that ever work?

Science backs me up here. Research by Ariely and his co-author, Klaus Wertenbroch, found external deadlines work better than deadlines we impose on ourselves.

Another study of procrastination found reframing the task itself, rather than adjusting its deadline, was effective in helping procrastinators get to work. Participants in this study were asked to complete a puzzle, but were allowed to play Tetris for a while first.

When the puzzle was described as “cognitive evaluation”, procrastinators spent more time playing Tetris and avoiding the puzzle. When the puzzle was introduced as a game, however, the chronic procrastinators in the study got sucked into the puzzle as quickly as anyone else.

You might not always be able to convince yourself that your work is a game, but look for ways to reframe it.

My competitive nature wakes up when I give it a challenge. I like the idea of proving something, so this is a good way to “trick” my brain into getting stuck into some work I’ve been avoiding.

One approach I picked up from a MetaFilter suggestion is to challenge yourself to stay focused on a single task for as long as possible:

… try a count-up timer. See how long you can remain on task. See if you can beat your last record…

Here’s a really simple stopwatch you can use for free in your browser to apply this approach.

Another way I reframe work is to do it away from my desk. Although I have a great set up with a big screen and an ergonomic chair, there’s no way to tell myself I’m not about to work hard if I sit at my desk. But when I take my laptop to the kitchen table, or lie in bed with my iPad to write, it’s a lot harder to believe I’m doing “real work”.

Pychyl also suggests changing your attitude toward the task. If you think of your task as something you have to do, it’s likely that you’re feeling external pressure to get it done—it’s something expected of you, and the motivation to get it done is external. “External motivation requires self-control to be successful,” says Pychyl. “We have to exert our will to get down and work at the task as intended.”

Internal motivation, on the other hand, doesn’t cost us. We still have to exert ourselves to get the work done, but if we’re working from internal motivation it won’t feel draining. Pychyl suggests thinking of your task as something you want to get done, to help adjust your motivation to be more internal. When you care about getting something done for your own sake, rather than a deadline or external expectation, you can more easily find the effort required to get started.

6. Let yourself avoid uncomfortable tasks

If you can’t stop procrastinating, the good news is you can use this “bad” habit to your advantage. “Structured procrastination” is a clever way to stay productive even while you procrastinate.

Although this doesn’t stop the Big Scary Task from needing to be done, it does assuage some of the guilt that comes from procrastination, because you’re actually spending your time productively.

Perry also makes an important note: as self-aware procrastinators, we tend to cut down our to do lists. We know we’re not good at getting things done, so we think having fewer things to do will help. According to Perry, this goes against our nature as procrastinators. “The few tasks on [your] list will be by definition the most important,” he says, “and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being”.

Investor and entrepreneur Paul Graham uses the term “good procrastination” to mean working on more important things than what you’re avoiding. He says working on errands or unimportant tasks to avoid your real work is “bad procrastination”, whereas “good procrastination” is avoiding errands to do real work:

When I talk to people who’ve managed to make themselves work on big things, I find that all blow off errands, and all feel guilty about it. I don’t think they should feel guilty. There’s more to do than anyone could. So someone doing the best work they can is inevitably going to leave a lot of errands undone.

Graham breaks procrastination into three types, depending on what you do instead of that Big Task you’re avoiding:

The trick to “good procrastination”, according to Graham, is avoiding the less important, more urgent things on your to do list (which he suggests may be everything on it) to work on really important work. Your next big idea. The book you keep saying you want to write. The side project you believe in, but can’t find time for.

This is real work, says Graham. Mowing the lawn and filing your taxes can wait, if it means you spend big chunks of time on work that matters.

7. Use a timer

First, Babauta sets a timer for 30 minutes. During that time he stays focused on his work. When the timer goes off, he sets it again for 10 minutes, and rewards himself with a fun activity like blogging, reading emails, or checking RSS feeds. You could substitute YouTube videos, chatting with friends, or reading a book.

After 10 minutes, Babauta resets his 30-minute timer and gets back to work.

This method only works if you’re willing to stick to the timer schedule, so try to be really strict when you first try it out. And make that reward something you really look forward to, so you’re willing to stay focused in-between the 10-minute breaks.

After four rounds of 25-minute work chunks, you can take a longer break of 15–30 minutes.

Lots of people swear by this method, but I’ve always found it a bit restrictive. None of my tasks fit neatly into 25 minutes, and the 5-minute break doesn’t feel long enough to refresh my mind and stop thinking about what I’m working on.

To get around this, I use a slightly altered version of the Pomodoro Technique, which I call “ Real Life Pomodoro ”. Rather than using a timer set to 25 minutes, I use real-life events as timers.

For instance, because I work from home, I might put on the washing machine or dishwasher. While I wait for the machine to finish, I get to work on something I’ve been avoiding. Knowing I only have to work until the washing is done makes it easier for me to get stuck in—for some reason a time limit makes hard tasks seem less confronting.

And once the machine is finished, I unpack the dishwasher or hang up the washing. This takes me completely away from my work for a little while, and I get to do something more physical, so my body gets a break. I find this refreshing, and it helps me stay on top of housework at the same time!

You can make a real-life pomodoro from anything, but here are some more ideas of events you could use as timers:

8. Forgive yourself

A 2010 study of university freshman found that participants who forgave themselves after procrastinating on studying for the first exam in a course were less likely to procrastinate on studying for later exams. The researchers believe forgiving yourself for procrastinating can help you overcome negative feelings about the work you’ve put off in the past, so you can more easily approach future tasks.

Dr Pychyl, who was a co-author of this study, says self-forgiveness is “typically accompanied by a vow to change one’s behavior in the future,” which makes it more likely that we’ll procrastinate less after forgiving ourselves for procrastinating in the past. Pychyl also notes that the self-forgiveness effect is most noticeable in students who reported high levels of procrastination on their first exam. Pychyl says this is probably because “low levels of procrastination are unlikely to be perceived as having had much of an effect on one’s performance,” and therefore require less self-forgiveness.

When your confronting a daunting task, procrastination can seem almost inevitable. It’s not something most people can just decide to stop doing through sheer force of will. But understanding why we’re prone to procrastination and how to work with that habit, or around it, can help us avoid the worst consequences of avoiding work.

Have you discovered any strategies that have helped you overcome a procrastination habit? Share your experience with the rest of us procrastinators in the comments below!

Belle Beth Cooper

Belle Beth Cooper is the co-founder of Exist, a personal analytics platform to help you understand your life.

How to Stop Procrastinating

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!

In this article and video, we look at why it happens, and we explore strategies for managing and prioritizing your workload more effectively.

Click here to view a transcript of this video.

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

Step 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:

Step 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.

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.

Warning:

Also, research suggests that procrastination can be a cause of serious stress and illness. So, if you suffer from chronic or debilitating procrastination, one of these conditions could be to blame, and you should seek the advice of a trained professional.

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Step 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.

An alternative approach is to embrace «the art of delay.» Research shows that «active procrastination» – that is, deliberately delaying getting started on something so you can focus on other urgent tasks – can make you feel more challenged and motivated to get things done. This strategy can work particularly well if you are someone who thrives under pressure.

However, if you do decide to actively procrastinate, be sure to avoid putting your co-workers under any unnecessary, unpleasant and unwanted pressure!

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?

If you procrastinate because you’re disorganized, here are six strategies to help you get organized:

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.

Finally, if you think that you are putting something off because you can’t decide what action to take or you find it hard to make decisions, take a look at our range of decision-making tools to help you to develop your decision-making skills.

Key Points

Procrastination is the habit of delaying an important task, usually by focusing on less urgent, more enjoyable, and easier activities instead. It is different from laziness, which is the unwillingness to act.

Procrastination can restrict your potential and undermine your career. It can also disrupt teamwork, reduce morale, and even lead to depression and job loss. So, it’s crucial to take proactive steps to prevent it.

The first step to overcoming procrastination is to recognize that you’re doing it. Then, identify the reasons behind your behavior and use appropriate strategies to manage and overcome it.

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