Last week my sister told me she had issues with getting productive and staying focussed when doing her school. She’s a procrastinator, and she wants that to stop so she asked me for tips.
Procrastination is very humane, everybody does it — including me. But it’s very comforting to not do something instead of doing something.
Like many other bad habits, you can get rid of it, but you need to work on it and nobody can help you — you gotta do it yourself.
Acknowledge That You’re Procrastinating
First. You gotta find out if you’re procrastinating, or that’s you’re just lazy — because those two things are not the same.
One of the most prominent signs that you’re a procrastinator is when you’re constantly shifting your to-do list: you’ve got one item on your to-do list for a very long time and keep adding it to the next day or period over and over again
Before you can begin to address the issue of procrastination, you must first identify the causes behind your behavior.
Why are you doing this? Don’t you like the task you gotta complete or is it has it a different cause?
Lack of organization is one of the foremost reasons that people procrastinate.
Well-organized people are more likely to succeed in overcoming it because they employ prioritized To-Do Lists and construct efficient schedules — these tools assist you in prioritizing and scheduling your chores according to their due dates.
Build Anti-Procrastination Habits
Procrastination is a habit — a pattern of conduct that has been firmly established. This implies that you are unlikely to be able to break it overnight.
Habits only cease to be habits when you refrain from engaging in them.
Split Your Work Up
Procrastination is caused in part by the fact that we see the task as being too much for us on a subconscious level.
You should break it up into smaller pieces to make it more organized — then divide that task up again, until the tasks are so small you don’t even recognize them as being time-consuming.
When I’m developing software, this method is very effective — if I try to complete a task that is so big that I can’t even think of how I’m going to solve the problem — I tend to not do it at all.
Because programming is a very structured profession it’s very easy to split up the parts of the project.
Or another example: when you have to learn one or more chapters for a test, split it up into smaller pieces (or when it has paragraphs, use them) and after every piece, take a little break to recharge. This way, it will get a lot easier to get a hold of the content.
Create A Healthy Working/Studying Environment
Different environments have varied implications on our capacity to be productive. Take a look at your workstation and your surroundings.
If your environment motivates you to get to work, then you have the right environment and probably don’t have procrastination issues — but if your environment doesn’t excite you to start studying or working, and you’d rather watch Netflix or sleep then you might want to change up your environment.
Keep in mind that over some time, a setting that previously inspired us may no longer have the same influence.
If that’s the case, it’s time to make a reorganizational shift.
You should think about switching up your workstation once you get bored with your workplace. It’s some kind of a cycle you go through.
Work With Someone Who Has Overcome Procrastination
Find someone who has beaten procrastination.
One of the most effective motivators for taking action is seeing firsthand how your objectives are very much within reach if you take action. So find a buddy, a colleague, a relative, or a studying partner from school that has proven to be productive.
This solves two problems. Having a buddy makes the whole experience far more enjoyable. Both of you will hold each other responsible for the accomplishment of your objectives and that puts you under pressure to do something.
To add a third benefit to this method you need to find someone who inspires you. If you are working with people that inspire you — you’ll get inspired very quickly — even if you don’t want to do this together with people in the real world — find motivational videos on the internet to get inspired.
There are many more ways to beat procrastination and to reach your full potential — but that’s up to you.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to action. You may spend all of your time thinking, planning, and hypothesizing, but if you don’t take action, nothing will ever come to pass.