Everyone procrastinates.
In fact, 20% of Americans are “chronic procrastinators” and a whopping 87% of students are self-proclaimed procrastinators. Yet chronic procrastination not only hurts productivity, but also increases stress, depression, anxiety, and even cardiovascular disease.
I’ve definitely procrastinated a lot in my life. But over the years, I’ve been able to solve a lot of it, which has boosted my productivity and results while eliminating a lot of stress.
Here are the strategies that have helped me. From simple productivity tips to overcoming psychological barriers—as well as understand a difficult truth—I’m confident they can help you too:
Divide Your Task Into Smaller Tasks
Often, I procrastinate not because I’m unmotivated, lazy, or undisciplined—I procrastinate because I’m overwhelmed. There’s so much to do and all the steps seem daunting.
For example, if your task is to “write an article,” it can feel overwhelming: Writing an article can take many hours, and the only way to get it off your list is to finish the entire thing.
Instead, break your tasks into smaller, specific, and actionable ones that ideally can be done in under an hour. You could do “write an outline,” “write 200 words,” or “create 5 article ideas,” which are simple, fast, and measurable tasks. That way, you can finish more tasks in less time, which builds momentum and confidence.
Breaking tasks down helps us to see large tasks as more approachable and doable, and reduces our propensity to procrastinate or defer tasks, because we simply don’t know where to begin.
— Melissa Gratias, Ph.D.
Prioritize Your Tasks
Similar to feeling overwhelmed, another reason why people procrastinate is that they don’t know where to start.
Instead, after you separate your task into smaller ones, rank them in order of importance. What needs to be done immediately? What can wait? Which tasks, if you finish first, will make everything else easier and less stressful?
In my experience, the highest priorities aren’t what I initially think they are. For example, to write an article, create your article idea first. Then, outline what you’re going to put in. Then, flesh out each bullet point. (In the meantime, you can hold off on less important things.)
Learning how to prioritize will improve your productivity and your life in general because it boosts your focus and clarity for success.
If you don’t prioritize, everything seems urgent and important. If you define the single most important task for each day, almost nothing seems urgent or important. Oftentimes, it’s just a matter of letting little bad things happen (return a phone call late and apologize, pay a small late fee, lose an unreasonable customer, etc.) to get the big important things done. The answer to overwhelmingness is not spinning more plates — or doing more — it’s defining the few things that can really fundamentally change your business and life.
— Tim Ferriss
Change Your Mindset
Many people wait until the last minute to do something. But once they finally take action, they feel anxious, stressed, and hurried, and often deal with long waits because they’re with everyone else who procrastinated.
But the question I always ask is, “Why wait?”
If you have something that needs to be done, fixed, etc., why delay the inevitable? Why wait until the last minute? If you take action immediately, the worst-case scenario is you finish early—and that’s not a bad thing. You get to relax while everyone else is stressing out and panicking.
But if you wait too long, you give yourself no margin for error — if one little thing doesn’t go according to plan, you’ll miss your opportunity or deadline.
Build Momentum
Often, the hardest part of procrastination is starting. To help, use a simple technique to overcome the inertia and boost motivation: Set a timer for five minutes, do as much as you can, and stop once the alarm rings.
…the five-minute rule gives them increased confidence that they are able to take action to improve their mood when they initially may lack the motivation or energy to do so… prior to using the five-minute rule many clients believe only that motivation and energy lead to action and are necessary elements preceding action. After applying the rule, clients report awareness of the reverse causal view of the relationship — that action can increase motivation and energy.
— Dr. Patrick Keelan, LINK
Five minutes might not seem like much, but it’s better than nothing. The best part is, often, you’ll keep working after your alarm rings because you’ll already have the momentum to push you through.
Face Your Fears
Procrastination sometimes serves as a coping mechanism.
Procrastinators may be afraid to finish their work and expose themselves to rejection or criticism. As a result, they avoid failure by never trying and use procrastination as self-sabotage so they can blame their failures on deadlines instead of their own abilities. Or they’ll take far longer to complete the simplest of tasks because they’re worried if they’re doing something correctly.
Procrastination could also be a fear of success. Perhaps they fear that they’ll become what they despise or what they think is “wrong,” or that they aren’t worthy of glory or success.
It’s our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
— Marianne Williamson
Some people even use procrastination as a form of avoidance. By never finishing their goal and always starting new ones, they never have to rest and, consequently, confront the problems lurking underneath:
Chronic guilt and mental goals (tyrannical shoulds) keep him going from morning till night. If a goal is achieved, he feels empty because he feels he can always do more. If the goals become overwhelming he can become gridlocked, unable to accomplish even the smallest of goals. If he nears his goal, he may stop short of achieving it for the initiation of yet another goal. Closure is death to him, because there will be unwanted time for reflection.
— Steven Ozanich
If you struggle with procrastination, ask yourself what you’re afraid of. Failure? Success? Being inferior to others? This is a mirror to your life. Learn to face your fears. Learn to finish what you start and learn that you’ll be okay regardless of the outcome. Learn to feel worthy of success.
Get Someone Else To Do It For You
If there’s something you’re procrastinating, delaying, or avoiding, just ask someone else to do it for you. Often, you can just pay someone else to do it for you on sites like Fiverr, Upwork, etc. or you can just ask a friend or coworker.
For example, I procrastinated for many years to get my wisdom teeth pulled (despite knowing I should). Finally, after one dental exam, I asked my dentist, “Can you call the oral surgeon and set up an appointment for me? Because if I have to do it myself, I won’t.”
Five minutes later, I had an appointment set up and, a few days later, I had them pulled. All I had to do was have someone get the ball rolling for me.
Be Honest With Yourself
Here’s the hard truth: No matter how many productivity tricks you use, if you hate what you’re doing, you won’t be productive.
Sometimes procrastination might be a sign or something deeper. If you find yourself continually putting things off, maybe inside, it’s something you don’t want to do. Maybe your body, mind, and gut are trying to tell you something. And rather than trying to force yourself to do it, maybe it shouldn’t be there in the first place.
After all, if you really enjoy something, you rarely procrastinate on it. If you love playing sports, dancing, or playing music, you almost have to force yourself to spend less time on it because, otherwise, you’ll do it all the time.
Yes, there are things in life you must do no matter how much you dislike it (ex. paying taxes). But for others things that you continually resist, ask yourself why? Maybe it’s something you don’t really want, but you’re in denial.
The good news is, once you combine these strategies with things you actually enjoy, you’ll become unstoppable.
Good luck.
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