It’s 2:00 am. You are working furiously to complete a task before the deadline. You silently regret not starting the task sooner. Sounds familiar, right? At some point in our lives, we all had to deal with procrastination. You most likely have experienced the feeling of knowing you should get some work done, but somehow not being able to, and so you fool around all the way up to the last minute when stress and pressure force you to finish it. Procrastination is a trap that many of us fall into. If we aren’t “smarter” than procrastination, it’s a complete lose-lose situation: the task doesn’t get performed well, or even worse, the task doesn’t get done.
There are many tricks and tactics to help you stop procrastinating;
- Force yourself to start working: Force yourself to make the first step. The first step is always the hardest, but not impossible. And, once you start, the rest gets much easier. This is where discipline comes to action. Discipline forces you to push yourself hard into making the first step, and once you do it, you stop procrastinating and get the job done. The timeboxing technique, which is a time management technique, can help you with this.
- Manage your energy, not your time: Time management is extremely important, but also consider your energy levels. No matter how disciplined you are, you’ll have super productive days and not-so-productive ones. In the same way, you have your peak productive hours and less productive hours. So, to help you get the job done effectively, you should consider these tips:
- Push yourself when you have your daily peak productive hours, not when your energy levels are low.
- If you feel tired, take a walk and start working right afterward.
- After a period of hard work, take a break and recharge your energy.
- Do other, easier tasks until your energy levels recover: You can use procrastination as a source of motivation to do other important tasks. The only key is that you don’t waste time on irrelevant tasks, but instead do other tasks which are marked as important on your to-do list.
- Tackle the hardest tasks at your “peak times”: Identify your peak time, meaning when you are most effective and do the hard tasks. This will make your work efficient.
Everyone needs to deal with procrastination; therefore, we have to be smart and find strategies to stop it. As we can see, discipline, time management, and identifying your most efficient times are extremely important. These tips do not only help you to stop procrastinating, but also organize your time efficiently, improve your efficiency in your work, and help you with self-improvement.
