Beat Procrastination And Struggle No More!💪
7 min read
I frequently ask my Twitter followers what they struggle with and what they’d like to improve. I often hear about frustrations with procrastination and not being able to get down to it.
I’m excited to share with you my favourite combo of tools to beat procrastination.
Maybe that’s a struggle for you too?
When I look back on my undergrad, especially the first couple of years, procrastination was a real demon for me. Literally, anything was more appealing than the thing I needed to do. You know what I mean, right?
Dishes were to be avoided at all costs until it was time to start on that paper due next week. I probably had the most organized room in the whole dorm. 😂
And I didn’t even have Twitter and YouTube back then. Now we’re faced with not only obvious procrastination — watching one more episode on Netflix — but also a more insidious kind…
Productive procrastination
This kind of procrastination is trickier to deal with and overcome because it looks and feels like you’re doing something valuable and useful.
You might be learning a new skill that, while not really relevant at the moment, might be useful down the road. Maybe you’re watching a YouTube video on how to improve your bartending skills because you’ll need to get a job this summer.
These are especially insidious because they combine something quasi-productive, learning something you might need, and lots of fun.
In fact, one way to identify this as productive procrastination is that you are in the early part of the learning curve, so it doesn’t yet feel like work (at which point you’ll procrastinate doing that with something else).
It may even be that reading this article is a form of productive procrastination!
If that’s the case, it’s important that you do the responsible thing and read it to the end, send it to two or three friends suggesting they clap and comment and then get back to whatever you were avoiding.🤣🤣🤣
Kidding aside, I mentioned identifying when you’re procrastinating. It’s actually pretty important because one key to beating procrastination is to…
Identify When You’re Procrastinating
Oh sure, there are moments when you’re procrastinating that you know you’re doing it. But putting the thing we have to do out of our mind and ignoring our actions in the moment is what
1) makes procrastinating easy to do and
2) causes so much lost time.
We don’t really notice the time go by.
That’s why noticing you’re doing it is so important.
In a moment, I’ll share with you a powerful tool that will help you notice yourself procrastinating. Before that, though, let’s touch on…
The Consequences of Procrastinating
If you’re like me, there were three main consequences until I got my act together…
1) SOOOOO much lost sleep
2) Weaker grades than I could’ve produced
3) So much unnecessary stress
But there were so many more consequences as well. I knew I was being foolish and hated the fact that I was actively doing something dumb that was negatively affecting me.
If you’re like many people, maybe you experience something similar. If so, then you can try out…
Solutions:
Take a Structured Approach
1. Time Blocking
Remember earlier I said it’s helpful to notice and identify when you’re procrastinating?
That’s because it’s easier to procrastinate if it happens in the background and you aren’t constantly making an active choice to procrastinate.
Time blocking is a great way to fix that.
It’s basically planning out what you’re going to do in blocks of your day ahead of time.
The big problem it solves is decision overwhelm. Instead of having to decide moment to moment what you’re going to do, it’s planned ahead of time.
I know, I know. I can practically hear you claiming it’ll be too constraining.
The good news is you can modify your time blocking through the day. But the beauty of it is you are making an active decision to overrule your plan. It adds intentionality back into things.
Importantly, if you’re in procrastination mode, it is a lot more obvious because your time block plan says you are supposed to be doing something else.
Time block planning can be a whole newsletter in and of itself but I wanted to introduce the idea and then touch on it again in the future.
It doesn’t have to be complicated, it can be as simple as a 2 minute process on a notebook sized piece of paper.
If you want to dig deeper into how to do it effectively check out Cal Newport’s podcasts.
If this isn’t your jam, or at least not right now, good news because I’ve also got…
2. Work In Small Chunks
It’s understandable to be intimidated by a huge project and try to avoid it.
Instead of trying to tackle the full task, start by doing the smallest possible piece of it, then the next small piece.
This will make it easier to get started.
It also helps you get started sooner since it’s only a small task. There’s usually a good relationship between starting early and success, so anything you can do to help yourself start earlier is probably a good thing.
3. The Pomodoro Technique
Another method is the Pomodoro Technique. You can take advantage of higher focus and concentration if you schedule your study time in 25 min intervals with a short break in between (5 mins or so). The rationale is that your mind will be better alert and engaged.
Other Methods
1. Choose The Most Important Thing
Identify the most important thing you have to do each day. Then, prioritize it and make absolutely sure you get it done.
It turns out this one’s hugely impactful.
Imagine getting your highest priority task done each day and what you could accomplish if you did that.
As an enlightening (and maybe slightly depressing) exercise: mentally go through your last two weeks and ask yourself if you checked off what would have been your highest priority task each day.
Congrats if you answered yes for most days. If not, you’ve just identified a super powerful and relatively easy way to level up.
2. Find Reasons For Doing the Task
We can have intrinsic motivations to do something.
Maybe it’s for the sense of accomplishment, or you enjoy doing the task so much it gets you over the friction point of procrastination. This is the most desirable.
If you’re a fan of Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, you might be familiar with his approach to retaking control of dopamine release in your brain by training yourself to enjoy the process even or especially if it’s difficult.
The unfortunate reality is that’s not always the case, so you may need extrinsic reasons.
If you’re struggling to get down to it, you might find it helpful to think about why you’re doing it in the first place.
It could be because you want to get higher grades for a scholarship or to get into a particular program. Maybe the job you want screens out candidates with lower grades, so that could be your motivation.
It can help to use that to find the motivation to get past the friction to start.
3. Ask Yourself Why You’re Procrastinating
I think this one is underappreciated. Sometimes, this is all you need to do: identify that you’re procrastinating and ask yourself why.
It may be a dumb reason which you can easily swat away and get down to it.
Or it may be something bigger which you need to address longer term.
What Are Your Tips?
Hopefully, this has given you valuable tools to add to your toolkit when procrastination strikes.
And I’d love to know what tricks you used to beat procrastination.
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