We’ve all been in that place – working furiously to finish a deadline coming up in a matter of hours, for a work you’ve been assigned way long ago, silently cursing and scolding ourselves to have started earlier. Almost all of us, (to be precise, according to studies, 95% of people) have fallen into the sweet traps of procrastination at one or the other time – choosing a lesser priority, and often more enjoyable task over a less interesting (and most of the time more important) tasks. Just because you procrastinate doesn’t mean you’re lazy – laziness is when you do nothing at all, where at least when you procrastinate, you’re doing some other tasks, just not as important. Nevertheless, procrastination is something that could affect our lives in many different ways, and lead to demotivation or even depression. In this article, get to know how could avoid procrastination through simple, little habits.
Be accountable to someone
Share your goals with someone – your best friend, partner, a colleague, mentor or even your boss. You could also find yourself a goal buddy, a person who you could mutually talk about goals and work towards achieving them. Tell them about what you have to finish, and let them track your progress through your updates. Whenever you have to report to someone, you feel more accountable to your work and have the compulsion to finish it.
Break down your work into smaller, little steps
Most of the time, we procrastinate because the work required to do seems too complicated, long and over-whelming. When that’s the case, break it down to very small, simple tasks, so that when you think about it, you would want to do it because it seems like a seemingly little, manageable task.
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Forget the outcome. Focus on the task ahead.
Another reason we tend to procrastinate is the fear of failure. The thought of a task not giving the expected outcomes might be demotivating you not to do it. Instead of thinking about the end result, focus on how you could put in your best efforts to do the task.
Create more deadlines yourself
When we have only one deadline, we often tend to think that we have more time left to finish. That’s why it is recommended to make a personal schedule, with your own “sub” deadlines, that you have to finish at any case. These deadlines should be realistic, meaningful and concrete. This keeps you on track, without waiting to work till the actual deadline approaches.
Make your environment work-friendly
Often our environments influence our moods to work or not. Does your room motivate you to go work or does it provoke you to snuggle up in your bed and sleep? If it is something like the second case, you might want to make changes to you are actually provoked to study.
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Get rid of all the things that distract you
When it’s time to work, set aside all the things that have the potential to distract you and stop you from focusing. The source of distraction might be your phone or even external noises. Follow simple solutions like switching notifications off in your phone, or listening to light music to avoid external noise.
Work in your energy peak times
All of us have a time of the day where we are filled with energy and highly productive. Figure out what time of the day that is for you. Make it a point that you have to sit down and do important tasks, especially the ones you tend to procrastinate in this time window. Tell yourself at any cost that you have to do only top priority tasks in this time, and other tasks can be done later.
There is no time like the right time to do any task. In fact, that “right time” would never come. It all just comes down to you taking the initiative action to start and work towards achieving your goals! Success comes with a price and so many hurdles – probably every successful person once had to overcome their own habit of procrastination to succeed.
By: Srinithya Ravinuthala
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