Why not do today what you should have done yesterday?

Georgia Koutsoukou
Jul 24, 2017 · 3 min read

It’s been almost a month since I came up with the idea to start posting my own material on Medium, and only a couple of weeks since I began to keep daily notes about everything I’ve been through. Looking back at my notes today, I noticed a familiar behavior repeated over and over…

In all of my notes I tend to write about things I want to do in the immediate or indirect future, whether this includes lists of books I want to read, or classes I want to take or even more, routine tasks. Start writing on Medium was another pending task in my lengthy list with stuff that had to be done.

However, this list had been a good reason to be aware of something I didn’t notice until today… My systematic procrastination!

Wanting to deal with many things at the same time, I often do not know where to start, no matter how well organized I may be.

As a result, some tasks just keep being postponed again and again.

While making these thoughts, my notes began to change form and instead of adding tasks to my already large list, I decided to focus on ways that would help me fight my procrastination and become more efficient.

So here are my 5 golden rules to beat procrastination

1. Set priorities: I am sure that all of your tasks are not of the same importance. In order not to lose control, start setting priorities according to your own criteria (what you like most, what you need to do first or whatever means priority to you).

2. Find what stops you: If you have chosen to do things you like then why are you avoiding them? It is very important to find out what keeps you behind and you cannot devote yourself to a task.

3. Don’t forget the motivation: What was the reason you put each task on your list? What is it that you will win after completing it? When you are stuck and you cannot start or finish a job, remember your final goal.

4. Set a deadline: An efficient way to deal with procrastination is to work with deadlines. When you know that there is nothing to push you to complete a task then you will simply continue to postpone it. The adrenaline that creates the feeling that the time is up, always works efficiently.

5. Just start working: The most direct way to stop postponing something is to do here and now! So for goodness sake, stop finding excuses for yourself.

Hey wait a sec… I just did it! From now on there is one less task pending on my list.

Hope you’ll enjoy my very first post and find the advice useful for yourself too. And if not, it’s OK you can always set your rules!

In each case, give some love and feel free to leave your comment saying what works for you!

Georgia Koutsoukou

Written by

Copywriter | Traveler | Free-spirit

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