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How To Beat Procrastination And Move On

Introduction

Let they who are innocent of procrastination throw the first stone… and not a single stone could be thrown. We have all done it at some point in our lives, whether it was as a child, determined to avoid cleaning our bedroom or doing our other assigned chores – or, it was an amazing idea that was a total win, but you didn’t follow through and someone else beat you to it.

Have you ever looked at the stock market and saw an opportunity that you told yourself you’d buy and then you put it off, only to lose out because you moved too late? OR Is your house is messy and cluttered because you keep putting off the work in front of you?

You are guilty of procrastination – you missed an opportunity because you thought you’d do it one day.

There’s a problem with that mentality – it means you never take a chance, you never do stuff. Instead, you find an endless stream of excuses so that you can avoid doing. You don’t have enough time for x, y, and z.

You’re too low on money to take a risk right now. It doesn’t matter what it is… you always find yourself coming up with an excuse. However, the reality is you will never take action when you are so quick to make excuses. How will you ever move forward if you’re so busy doing nothing?

How has that been working out for you so far? Are you loving life, or do you find yourself exceedingly frustrated? You there with big dreams and amazing plans, never taking a single step to get there.

Procrastination is holding you back and while we’re all guilty of it, some of us are worse than others and in all honesty, it’s holding you back. For some people, it can be incredibly costly.

For example, perhaps you have an unhealthy habit, be it smoking, excessive alcohol consumption or food, and though you repeatedly tell yourself not to give into these habits, you put it off. You’ll quit smoking in the new year, you’ll cut back on your drinking, you’ll start that diet next week (or after your vacation, after the holiday season, in the new year, etc.).

You make excuses for all your unhealthy habits and why it’s too hard to let them go and then you reach a point where it’s too late or you get a health scare that jolts you into action.

The biggest problem with procrastination is that it’s preventing you from living for today. When you reach the end of your days you don’t want to look back on a life filled with regret over the actions you never took.

You Can Beat Procrastination

Are you ready to beat procrastination and grab your opportunities?

Start by making a list of everything that you want from life – no matter how big or how small it is, write every single one of those wants down. Whether it’s making your first million by the time you’re 30 (or 50) or reaching out to someone new every day. Get it all down on a piece (or pages) of paper and start taking the necessary actions to reach your goals.

It may be taking the bull by the horns and approaching someone you’ve been attracted to for months, reading a book, picking up the phone to make a call and take the first step toward your goal.

It’s all about creating a bit of momentum. Procrastination is a bad habit, rather a series of bad habits and most of them can’t be broken overnight, it’s a gradual process.

It’s time to see procrastination for what it is – the terminator of opportunity. The only way to complete something is to start it. Here’s the rub – while you may get things done eventually, what are you doing with the rest of your time?

Filling your time with the most menial of tasks to avoid getting started on that big project? You fool yourself into thinking you’re productive because you have found tasks to fill your time, you have found busy work. It makes you feel better, doesn’t it?

Any serious procrastinator knows that there is little on earth that could move them into doing the one task they need to if they don’t want to or feel like doing it. The problem is that it’s not a permanent solution – it’s a nasty habit that you fall back on in your worst moments.

Then, time runs down, and you are running around like a headless chicken trying to get everything done in time. You’re setting yourself up for failure.

Why?

There’s more than one reason. We all find ourselves facing difficult situations and unpleasant moments in life, whether in our careers or personal lives. The excuses you might make for your procrastination include:

• Ignore your problems and they go away, it’s a lot like children cleaning their bedroom by shoving the mess under the bed or in the closet to make it appears the job is done.
• I didn’t realize that task full under my purview. Yes, plausible deniability – how could have completed something that you didn’t realize you were supposed to tackle?
• If I ignore it long enough someone else will come along and take care of it. Yes, this popular excuse is a tale as old as time.

You have probably used one of these excuses in the past (and possibly will again), and you may have even gotten away with it at the time. However, it’s a disaster just waiting to happen.

Breaking The Habit

So, how can you move beyond procrastinating and start living your life as you really want to?

The first step is recognizing that it’s a problem and understanding just how damaging it is to you. It is what is standing between you and a productive version of yourself.

The second step is to find creative ways to make yourself do what you need to do. For instance, create a sign and place it somewhere you can see it at all times. Your sign could say something as simple as just get on with it or you could make it more specific to you and your distractions. For example, you can check social media at lunch.

You may also want to use prompts to trigger you into action. So, when you get up for a cup of coffee and sit back down at your desk, that means it’s time to tick a project off your list that you don’t want to do but that really needs to be taken care of. Coffee is the trigger to send you into action.

Of course, we already covered the list making part of breaking the habit – but we’ll remind you of this again. This is more specific than the one you created earlier – this list is the tasks that you have to do, but you don’t want to do.

Perhaps, it’s balancing the budget, compiling a weekly report for your boss, ironing, it doesn’t matter what it is, just make sure all those pesky jobs you hate are on the list. You should go out of your way to tackle at least one of these every single day.

Now, your job may require you to do more than one a day – but, if there are multiple tasks that you need to complete in your workday that you don’t like, make sure to line them up first. That way you get them out of the way and you can breeze through the rest of your day without coming up with excuses and reasons to avoid those annoying tasks.

Make sure you place a tick next to each job once it’s complete – it feels great to see them add up and you finish your day with a great sense of accomplishment, this is a great way to counteract your procrastination problem.

One of the biggest keys to breaking your habit is to offer yourself a reward every time you avoid procrastination and do the right thing. It doesn’t have to be a physical reward, it could be the silent celebration of ticking something else off your list and taking a moment to enjoy the feeling of euphoria that comes with getting something annoying out of your hair.

Do this with every tick of your list.

No one else can fix your procrastination problem – only you can do that, so, create a healthy habit of celebration. Don’t let procrastination hold you back.

Are You Guilty Of Habitual Procrastination?

Are you constantly making excuses for procrastinating? Are you at a point where you recognize that procrastination is holding you back from being your best self?

Let’s take you through the steps to beat it and discuss some of the other causes of your procrastination and what you can do to limit its impact.

Admit The Problem

It doesn’t matter whether you tell someone else that you’re a procrastinator or you simply tell yourself – admitting that there’s a problem is a big step and it’s the first one.

Learn To Manage Your Distractions

Is it your phone? An obsessive need to check social media or email? If you don’t need internet access to tackle your job, then turn it off while you focus on your big projects. If it’s chores that you have a problem with then turn your phone off and shun the things that distract you.

Create A Schedule

Whether it’s chores you put off, studying or a major work project – make yourself a schedule to help you navigate your day. If you know that a particular project is going to take two hours then schedule it in and make sure you take mini breaks regularly to recharge your brain – a 5-minute break for every 30 minutes of work is a good place to start, especially when dealing with a task you dislike. Stick to your schedule and you may find that you’re more efficient than you’ve ever been.

Change Your Scenery

If you always work in the same spot and find yourself constantly distracted, it may be time to change your scenery. If it’s studying, try a different room or try studying outside. If it’s a work project and your office is restricting you, try another workspace in your office. If it’s an ironing problem, move your ironing board to a room with the view (or even in front of the television if it keeps you motivated).

Include Friends

For studying (and even some chores), you can invite friends over and get stuck in together. How can you do chores with friends? Well, you can all fire up video chat and hang out while you iron, life always move quicker when you’re having fun.

Incisive Questioning

When you find yourself procrastinating despite following all of the steps above, it’s time to ask yourself some difficult questions. Why are you struggling to get down to business? Are you having trouble understanding the brief? Do you feel anxious about letting people down? Are you stressed out?

Bigger Procrastination Issues

There may be other causes of your procrastination problem, such as anxiety, creativity, and even ADHD. So, let’s cover what you can do to combat procrastination that is caused by one of these issues.

Anxiety

If you are struggling with an anxiety disorder, then there’s a good chance you procrastinate because you start to feel overwhelmed by what life is throwing at you. As stress increases so will your anxiety, thus making focus and direction a great challenge. This makes you more likely to try to avoid tackling certain projects.

So, what can you do to combat procrastination that is caused by your anxiety? You can start with a spot of deep breathing. This is the quickest and easiest way to reduce your anxiety levels and bring about a bit of calm. Regular yoga and exercise are also helpful, but this is something that you should do daily as a greater way to control your anxiety levels, as opposed to something you can do at that moment.

Attitude

Okay, your procrastination could be down to your attitude – maybe you just prefer to do other things and don’t really care about the must-dos. Whether it’s your problem or you have a teenager who is a master of avoidance, we have some helpful tips for you.

It’s all about understanding the importance of stepping up and doing what you’re supposed to do. It’s the responsible action to take, no matter how much you hate it. What you need is a change of attitude.

ADHD

Even for people who take medication for their ADHD, they may still struggle with focus and giving projects the necessary attention. You feel more prepared to tackle projects at the last minute because you’re convinced that you focus better when you’re under the gun. You’re more efficient when forced to work under pressure. This simply isn’t true and waiting until the last minute is causing you more stress than you need to put yourself under.

For someone with ADHD, a helpful way to avoid procrastination is to create a clear schedule that includes daily goals as well as weekly tasks that need to be completed. It doesn’t matter whether you do it in a document on the computer, use a whiteboard or just create a detailed list.

Your best bet is to complete your work in smaller chunks – that could be 30-minute bursts, or 45-minute ones followed by a 5 or 15-minute break to recharge. Keep the easier tasks for the end of the day and tackle the ones you dislike first. It’s really all about working on your organizational skills to manage your procrastination effectively.

• Creativity – Creative types often have difficulty focusing on the task at hand (or on just one thing, if we’re being really honest). They can easily get lost in their art for hours upon hours, but when it comes to the tasks they have to do… it’s an entirely different story. You may find that you don’t have a problem starting a task, the problem is you can’t finish it because your mind wanders a million miles a minute.

There’s a reason you keep getting stuck – so creative types need to learn how to step back and look at the bigger picture. This will help you see what you’re missing and what’s stopping you from moving forward, whether it’s a work thing, a creative thing or both. Writers often face deadlines and run into writer’s block that holds them back from achieving that deadline – it’s all about taking a step back and understanding what it is that’s preventing you from moving forward.

Unfortunately, you may deal with one or more of these problems, which can make overcoming your procrastination a bit more challenging to deal with. You may find that one of these solutions is effective or you may need to use a combination of them to get over your roadblocks. No matter what solution works best for you, the point is that there are solutions available to help you beat your procrastination problem.

Additional Tips

Here are some additional hints and tips that may help you overcome procrastination.

• The Power Hour – When is it that you do your best work? Are you a night owl, an early bird or do you really come into your own in the afternoon? While getting annoying tasks out of the way first might work for everyone, you may feel more comfortable slotting in those difficult tasks for the hours of your day where you feel the most focused.

• Specific Goals – When you write out your to-do list for the day and look over it, what tasks put the fear into you? It can feel incredibly threatening to look at tasks that are vague – so, instead of putting review business plan when possible on your list, assign it a specific time and make it seem more appealing in your specificity.

• Smaller Chunks – Bit-sized goals are easier to digest than large ones. So, if you handle recruitment don’t write on your list that you’re going to review resumes, telephone interview specific candidates, and set interviews for those you feel fit the bill. This breaks a large task into smaller tasks and relieves some of the pressure.

• Flexible Scheduling – We’ve discussed the importance of creating a schedule, but it’s important that yours allows you some flexibility. A schedule that’s too rigid might just prevent you from carrying through and invite the temptation of procrastination. You need breathing room during your day.

• Disconnect – Don’t allow the temptation of the internet to draw you in throughout the day. You aren’t going to miss any major news on social media if you limit yourself to checking it at lunchtime only – Karen from high school and Larry from accounting aren’t that interesting. Just think of how often you break your focus to indulge a distraction… it isn’t just the minutes you waste checking social media, emails or news – it takes time to get your concentration back on track, too. So, turn your phone off (or, put it on silent or airplane mode) during your working hours, and let everyone in the office know that you only check emails at specific times.

• Let Go Of Perfection – Yes, you want to do a good job, but you shouldn’t allow your need for perfection to stop you from starting a task. Nothing can be perfect and telling yourself it has to be is a great way to make more excuses for never starting.

• Pleasure Or Pain – When you finish a task, celebrate it – maybe a 5-minute break, a short walk (a trip to the movies if you’re completing a major project), or just a pat on the back. Just make sure the reward is appropriate for the effort you had to put in to complete it. Importantly, do not punish yourself if you give into procrastination. We are all guilty of this, so instead of punishing yourself look at how best you can prevent it from happening again.