How to stop procrastinating: It’s the end of the week, and my Publisher is literally on my neck because I haven’t sent in the piece yet. Under so much pressure, I’m scribbling away but the article isn’t coming together. I’m a complete wreck. But wait for a second; How did I end up here in the first place? What happened the other day that I wasn’t able to do this work? Going back memory lane, this was my strategy for that day: “Finish the piece on my desk before the week ends so I can get it across for publishing”.
I took out my notepad to jot down some ideas, but I decided to first check my e-mails and reply to some messages from my pals. During this time, I came across some intriguing posts on a blog and decided to check them out. From then, I was involved in a slew of activities (most of which I don’t recall). I still hadn’t written anything down as it got closer to noon. “There’s still time,” I told myself, “and you’ll be able to finish this article in no time.” To shorten a long tale short, at the end of the day, there was no article. Now, I’m completely perplexed.
This scenario, I’m sure, is familiar to many people. So, what’s the best way to put it? You guessed it, PROCRASTINATION.
When you procrastinate, you are deferring or delaying something that requires immediate attention. This is a problem that we’ve all had to deal with at some point. Many others, though, have allowed it to become a habit. Procrastination is an issue since it not only reduces your productivity and prevents you from accomplishing your objectives, but it’s also difficult to overcome.
This article aims to provide practical advice on how to quit procrastinating.
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How to stop procrastination and laziness
1. Recognize and Identify the Problem: To break the cycle of procrastination, you must first recognize that you engage in the act. It’s a lot more difficult to solve a problem that you don’t even realize is a problem.
The second step is to determine the nature of the problem you’re confronted with. Before you can begin to address your procrastination, you must first comprehend the reasons for it. When examining the nature of your procrastination, you need to ask yourself some vital questions:
When do I procrastinate? How do I procrastinate? Why do I procrastinate?
Answering these questions will give you an idea of what you are dealing with. Instead of hoping that things will change in the future, you might take the time to clearly analyze the nature of your procrastination problem and then devise a viable solution.
Future rewards, anxiety, perfectionism, fear of being judged or receiving negative feedback, fear of failure, a sense of lack of control, a lack of motivation, a lack of energy, task aversion, poor decision-making, short-term emotion prioritization, distractibility, and so on are all reasons why people procrastinate.
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2. Adopt anti-procrastinating Strategies: Procrastination is a deeply ingrained behaviour pattern. This means you’re not going to be able to stop it right away. However, once you’ve identified the nature of your procrastination, the next stage is to devise a strategy to rid yourself of it. Different anti-procrastination tactics will emerge as a result of this plan of action. However, you must first determine which anti-procrastination strategy to employ and how to employ them. These strategies are largely of two kinds:
a. Behavioral Strategies: These methods entail changing your actions directly by assisting you in instilling positive behaviours and avoiding negative ones. Minimizing distractions from your work environment is an example.
b. Cognitive Strategies: These approaches work by directly altering your ideas, assisting in instilling positive thought patterns and the avoidance of negative ones. Developing a positive mindset is an example.
Some strategies include both behavioural and cognitive elements; the key thing is to grasp the overall concept behind anti-procrastination strategies and choose which one works best for you. You can eliminate strategies that don’t work for you as you go along while experimenting with others you haven’t tried to find a new beneficial approach.
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3. Break Down Your Work Into Smaller Sub-tasks: Breaking down major undertakings into smaller sub-tasks may encourage you to take action by making them feel less intimidating and allowing you to experience a continuous stream of pleasant accomplishments. Additionally, doing so aids you from an organizational aspect by supporting you in determining exactly what you need to do to achieve your goals and allowing you to create detailed plans.
4. Prioritize Tasks: Prioritizing your tasks might assist you in determining which tasks need to be completed and when they need to be completed. This will prevent you from procrastinating by wasting time on unimportant tasks while neglecting vital ones, as well as circumstances where you feel overwhelmed because you don’t know where to begin or which things to focus on.
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5. Discover Your Productivity Dynamics: Various people have different productivity cycles, meaning they are productive at different times of the day. Mornings are more productive for some people, while evenings are more fruitful for others. Similarly, some people are more productive after they eat, while others are more productive when they are hungry.
Identifying your peak times, or the times of day when you’re most productive, and then scheduling the majority of your work around those times is a good way to reduce your procrastinating tendency.
6. Associate With People Who Inspire You To Take Action: Our actions are influenced by the individuals we spend time with. Identify the people, friends, or colleagues who inspire and challenge you, and interact/associate with them more often. They are most likely go-getters and hard workers. You’ll soon pick up on their motivation and spirit.
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7. Remove all potential Sources of Distraction: Removing distractions from your environment increases your chances of concentrating on your work and avoiding procrastination. When doing so, keep in mind the negative impact that even seemingly tiny distractions can have on your performance.
So, whatever serves as a distraction for you, whether it’s your phone, social media, or a crowded workspace, you’ll want to get rid of it so you’re less likely to procrastinate.
8. Change your Environment: Our productivity is influenced by our surroundings in several ways. A terrible work atmosphere might lead to increased procrastination, whilst a good work environment can help you be more productive. If you find that working in one place causes you to procrastinate, try working somewhere else.
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9. Boost your Energy levels: When you’re in a bad mood or merely tired, you’re more likely to procrastinate. As a result, increasing your energy levels is one of the simplest ways to get out of a rut and stop procrastinating. The following are some of the most crucial things you can do to increase your energy: Make sure you get adequate sleep, drink enough water, and eat something (moderately) nutritional. Take breaks by going for a walk outside, engage in workouts, or you can listen to music.
10. Set Time Constraints For Decision-Making: If you procrastinate because you find it difficult to make decisions on time, you can limit the amount of time you have to make judgments by imposing artificial time constraints on yourself. This technique is especially useful in situations where you don’t have any new information to consider or where the decision you need to make isn’t that important in the first place, such as when none of the available options is significantly better than the others, making it irrelevant which one you choose.
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11. Set Deadlines For Yourself: Setting deadlines for oneself can lessen the likelihood of procrastination since deadlines act as a commitment mechanism, allowing you to plan and motivate yourself. When it comes to creating deadlines for oneself, it’s critical to make sure they’re concrete, reasonable, and significant. It’s also vital to note that deadlines should motivate you to get started on your project as soon as possible. As a result, you should avoid utilizing deadlines that encourage you to put off starting your work until the last possible moment.
12. Reward Yourself for Your Achievements: People frequently postpone because necessary actions that will benefit them, in the long run, are less enticing than less useful behaviours that will provide immediate gratification. As a result, you can lessen the possibility that you will procrastinate by linking short-term benefits with long-term actions that are beneficial to you.
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13. Develop Self-efficacy and a Positive Mindset: Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s own ability to take the steps necessary to attain one’s objectives. This idea is critical to your ability to self-regulate your behaviour, which allows you to avoid procrastination.
Self-efficacy is linked to having a positive attitude, which might help you lessen your procrastination in some instances by improving your enthusiasm to work and lowering your fear of failure
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Conclusion
It’s never easy to break free from procrastination, but never underestimate the power of small, regular, positive actions.
Edeh Samuel Chukwuemeka, ACMC, is a lawyer and a certified mediator/conciliator in Nigeria. He is also a developer with knowledge in various programming languages. Samuel is determined to leverage his skills in technology, SEO, and legal practice to revolutionize the legal profession worldwide by creating web and mobile applications that simplify legal research. Sam is also passionate about educating and providing valuable information to people.