No Cure for Procrastination: Here is How to Prevent it.
Does everybody love procrastination? No, then why the hell we ( I and you) procrastinate every day.
When you procrastinate you don’t realize it,
You realize it the next day, under the shower.
You say, “Again I wasted my yesterday…blah..blah..blah” and you get the negative start for the day.
You feel stress and anxiety.
You think you are not capable to do your job.
You think you are not getting results.
Then you say,
I have to eliminate my procrastination habit, this is a root of all negativity.
You: “I will write 2 articles, I will read another book… ”
You set high goals without reality. And guess what…
Again you fail to do that…again and again, next day, the same routine.
I also experienced the same thing before I dig into my problems and analyse the reasons.
But what I found…
You can’t cure procrastination, you have to prevent it.
A few days ago, I read the book “Power of habit”. It says we are the results of our habits.
A habit form by a trigger, an action and a reward. I analyze my procrastination’s trigger point and reasons.
I worked on it and got some interesting results.
So let’s get deep into it and know what to do prevent procrastination.
1. Manage Your Time
It may look common advice but few know how to manage time to avoid procrastination.
Here I mean,
You don’t have to manage all your 24 hr…wonder?
Because it’s very hard for you if you suffering from chronic procrastination.
Instead, here is you can do (the easy way)
Todo:
Set only 2 tasks a day for a single most important goal.
But schedule it every day at the same time.
If you are a writer,
Main Goal: Writing daily
Set,
- 2 hours for research
- 3 hours for writing
The short task with high focus will make progress.
See, how much it takes, just 5hr and you still have 19 hr left for other job, tasks and family.
It boosts your confidence if you do it consistently and in the right way (I’ll tell you later).
2. Don’t Think About The Results.
I used to do think more about results before I changed my mindset.
You say,
“From today, I will write daily… become a top writer”
“I will get more project…wait but how can I manage all project at a time, how can I handle my client”
Then, you google it, how to work on multiple projects at a time.
And read, watch all the stuff which is not important at that moment.
Reading stuff that is not important at the current movement is also procrastination.
Throw it out.
The simple way to avoid this problem
Todo:
Instead of thinking about the result,
Think about value, process.
“What I can do today, now, that will bring a smile to other people face.”
“What I can do today, now, that will make my reader more productive.”
“What I can do today, now, that will make more money for my client.”
I guarantee you you will see the difference:
“Just Process It.”
3. Clean Your Messy Desk
If you surround with messy people, they will make you a mess. What about a messy desk?
Your desk has multiple things on it.
Like water bottle, charger, books, pen, mobile, empty food dishes, calender.
Literally, there is a hammer on my desk right now…
I don’t know how it came here…give me a second
More ideas come when there’s less thing around you.
Todo:
Remove all stuff which is unnecessary to do ongoing work.
4. Work With Timer
Whenever I don’t have any deadline, most of my time goes to procrastination.
Should I do this or not? I don’t feel motivated.
The best I found to get more thing done in less time is to set a timer.
When you create a time deadline, you feel the pressure.
But that pressure is good, it brings out all the energy and creativity from your mind.
As long as you do so, you practise, your mind will get habitual to it. After some days it will be normal for you.
If you play FIFA video game, you understand how intensely you play when last five minute remains. You almost break the gamepad.
Todo:
Set timer for work in ratio.
I preferred to choose 35:10 ratio.
In other words, 35 minutes for writing and 10 minutes break.
In those 35 minutes,
-No break.
-No other tab.
-Don’t leave your sit.
-Completely Isolated.
Repeat that process again and again.
See the results, thanks to me later.
5. Shut down all distraction
Ding…
Whose message is this?
The rest is a waste of hours.
You check message, then redirected to the Facebook and then you think,
let me check my Instagram.
Then you check fantasy league points.
Watch youtube video about buzzing news.
It loses your focus on work.
And after that, you feel helpless with no goal and full of anxiety.
Remember, It takes 25 minutes 15 seconds to gain your focus back after interruption.
Todo:
- Turn off the phone(or make it silent and put upside down),
- Use earplug,
- Chose a time when there is no noise (morning or late night).
6. Walk with Ideas
When you don’t have any idea what you are doing with your life.
Completely blank,
Take a break…
Todo:
Get out and just take a walk with thoughts.
Thoughts of what should I do? What’s my first step?
Because when you walk, walking boosts endorphins, improve your mood and release the stress you have.
It will give you more creative ideas and a head start.
It will outline your task.
Remember not to use a mobile phone while doing this.
7. Watch an amazing “ How they did it” videos.
When I talk about watching a video I mean watching other than your field.
It’s my favourite way to get inspired.
Yes, here you can watch the video but just for 5 minutes.
Search 5-minute how-they did it video on any other topic.
Todo:
If you are a web designer,
Then watch how they build the tallest building in the world.
It will not only inspire you but also give a new way to look at the problem and solve it.
8. Stop Reading about procrastination
Yes…
Stop reading more about procrastination.
The more you read, the more you procrastinate.
There is no reason to do so.
Todo:
Stop reading more about procrastination.
So, Did I cure my procrastination?
Not at all, and you can’t. But I covered all the way I get distracted and how I try to recover it.
If you work on the above methods, I am dam sure it will prevent your upcoming procrastination.
Bouns: Tools that I use to avoid distraction and increase productivity
Momentum is a tool that replaces your tab page with todo list and an inspiration quote.
2. Toggle
The Toggle is a free time tracking software helps you be more productive.
A Chrome extension that removes facebook feed. So that you can keep the focus on business groups and pages.
4. Block Site
It easily blocks any website that you think its a time waster.
So stop reading about procrastination and start working.
Comment down your distraction or trigger point for procrastination and let others give you their solution to avoid it.
