Arrest Procrastination and Halt this Thief of Time

We’ve all heard the quotes when it comes to procrastination. “Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today” and “Action today can prevent a crisis tomorrow”… and so on and so on. Yet, millions of people procrastinate daily. 

So why do we not do what we know we need to do?
 
The answer is simple. When you view a task as unpleasant and tiring, your mind immediately starts cooking up excuses to prevent you from being in discomfort. This is your self-preservation instinct at its finest. Your mind is trying to protect you. While this is good when it comes to dangerous situations, for the most part it’s unnecessary and actually holding you back.
 
Knowing how to act is crucial to avoid procrastination. If you keep procrastinating, your work will pile up and your schedule will become a mess. You won’t reach your goals or meet your deadlines. It’s impossible to have any kind of work-life balance when you’re always playing catch-up. So, here’s what you need to do to stop procrastinating…
 
STEP 1: What’s the plan?
Make a list of ALL the things you need to get done. List them in 3 categories:
- Urgent
- Important
- Others
 
Get the urgent matters out of the way ASAP, then focus on the important tasks and finally clear the other tasks as and when you can.

STEP 2: Do you have 2 minutes?
 
Many times, you may feel like you’re not in the mood for an activity. This could be exercise or writing or cleaning your house, etc. Whatever the activity is, your mind is already making excuses for you to avoid doing it.
 
You’re thinking of skipping the workout. Or maybe you’d rather organize the folders in your laptop than write that blog post you need to. Clean the house? Pfft! You can always do that next week. Your mind NEVER lacks excuses and they’re all very plausible and highly convincing. Quite frankly, we usually don’t need that much convincing to procrastinate. So how do you beat this problem?
 
Simple. Just give yourself 2 minutes to do the task. Tell yourself that you’ll just exercise for 2 minutes or clean the room for 2 minutes. It doesn’t matter what the task is. Just aim for 2 minutes. You’ll often find that once you get started, you’ll usually go on for 30 minutes to an hour or longer.
 
It’s always the initial step of getting started that’s the most difficult. 2 minutes tricks your mental resistance because writing or exercising for 2 minutes is not as intimidating as doing it for 30 minutes or an hour. Employ this technique whenever you catch yourself about to procrastinate.
 
STEP 3: Shorten the deadlines.
 
Parkinson’s law states that, “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” What that means is that if you give yourself 3 days to complete a job, you’ll take 3 days. However, if you gave yourself 8 hours to do it, you’ll rush and get the job done. So, giving yourself shorter deadlines will help to motivate you by lighting a fire under your butt to get you moving. You can’t procrastinate when you have a deadline that’s approaching really fast. You’ll get the job done quicker than you thought possible.

STEP 4: You get motivation after, NOT before.
 
One of the cruel twists of life is that very often, you get motivation only after you’ve completed the work. If you wait to be motivated to do a task, you’ll be waiting a long time. However, if you just go ahead and do it, you’ll gain some self-satisfaction and feel productive. Now you’ll have the motivation to quickly complete the next task and so on. It’s this momentum that will keep you going and you gain self-confidence and a new-found respect for yourself. Now you’ll be truly motivated to keep up your winning streak.
 
Start doing first, and the motivation will come later – and you’ll not even think of procrastinating once you’re on a roll.
 
Avoid procrastination at all costs and understand that procrastination doesn’t change anything other than cause your responsibilities to pile up. Challenge yourself to get started today and right now! You got this!