Most or if not all of us will experience some form of procrastination in our lifetime.
Some of us may not even recognise that we are procrastinating, whereas some of us may just dread the level of procrastination experienced and wish for it to simply disappear.
It is a simple fact that procrastination is the most harmful ingredient to diminishing our productive efficiency, but that isn’t to say we cannot beat it.
My tips and tricks to make you the person you want to be should hopefully help you to tackle your productive procrastination and help you achieve your short or long-term goals:
Firstly, I like to start off by using the acronym AWH . It’s a very useful way to identify your weaknesses that are leading you to procrastinate.
This really allows you to reflect on your lifestyle and scope the possible issues that you may be facing, whether they may be personal or impactful on the people around you.
Could it be that your grades aren’t as you’d want them to be, because of the little work you’ve put into your revision, causing your parents to worry for you? You should be encouraged to overcome these issues upon reflection.
There should always be a sole root to your procrastination in the first place.
Could it be this urge to constantly talk with your friends on social media or binge watch the next twelve seasons of your favourite Netflix series, even though you can do that next week or next month?
These are the habits that can drive your procrastination.
This is a rather effective way to minimise your procrastination and can encourage you to become more productive.
To put it simply, if you complete your tasks, you will be rewarded and if you don’t complete them, you won’t be rewarded.
It is better for someone to offer these rewards rather than yourself however, because it helps you to avoid rewarding yourself despite failing to complete your important tasks.
One of the most effective ways to do this is by letting your relatives or parents take away certain procrastination tools such as your phone or television so that you physically cannot use them.
In doing so, you’re training your mind to fight the urge to avoid the tasks you need to do.
With practice, you become used to facing familiar situations where you cannot procrastinate, helping you to face your only option, which is to do the tasks you need to do.
You can set out these tasks on a daily basis, setting out multiple tasks to complete.
Once completed, you can be rewarded with your locked-away goods at times where you are allowed to use them (i.e during breaks or when you’ve done the necessary tasks you need to do for the day).
By considering the value of your long-term goal (or goals), you should hopefully be motivated to strive towards it.
This is how you achieve success like many inspirational athletes and celebrities in our world.
If you can identify your passion for the goal you want to achieve, then you should realise why you need to work and put in the effort to make use of that passion of yours.
Whether it is to become a racing driver, a successful businessman or be the next president, such goals should encourage you to work harder.
On top of this, you should always identify the consequences of failing to achieve your long-term goal.
Could it be that by failing to get into your dream job, you’ll end up working in a fast-food drive thru or for a boss who pushes you around for the rest of your life, instead of becoming an accomplished businessman of your own company (These are terrible examples but hopefully you get the idea)?
Discovering these kinds of consequences should motivate you to run as far away from them as possible and work towards your necessary long-term goal which you are passionate about.
Being able to organise yourself, your tasks, your time and your thoughts can be fundamental to minimising procrastination and maximising productivity. For example, something as simple as having a tidy desk can encourage you to become more productive! You can check out some cool desk accessories that could keep you well-organised here!
Set yourself a daily checklist full of tasks that you must complete over certain deadlines throughout the day for example.
Scope over all of the tasks you need to do and rank them in terms of their difficulty – These can all be tracked on some notebook paper or a timetable chart. This alarms you of the importance of completing these tasks within a given time frame.
The key idea is to develop your organisational skills.
Being organised helps to relieve stress, which is another component of procrastination.
If you can gather your thoughts up and manage them efficiently by writing them down, you are helping your mind to rest from all of the unnecessary pressure it has.
Remember, for you to perform well in your tasks, your mind must be energised and prepared without any underlying thoughts getting in the way.
