Procrastination is often viewed as a huge barrier to the productivity of most people. But there are definitely ways that each and every one of us can work on overcoming procrastination.

Hey Everyone!

Today I wanted to talk to you about overcoming procrastination.

To start things off, I wanted to share this Ted Talk by Tim Urban on procrastination with you. In this short video, Tim discusses how he’s never been able to shake this bad habit. He knows that procrastination literally makes no sense but he’s always completing his work last minute.

Tim takes the time to deliver a talk which is both insightful and humorous, and also encourages us to think harder about what we’re really procrastinating on before we run out of time and miss our biggest opportunities in life.

I would definitely encourage you to give this a brief watch!

The Procrastination Problem

It’s a sad reality, but procrastination is a huge problem in modern society. I’d be willing to bet that more than half of us struggle with procrastination on a daily basis. Because we’re always looking to distract ourselves with something, and when we’re not we become uncomfortable.

Some of the most common methods we use to procrastinate in our lives are sleeping/napping, playing games, watching TV, and spending time on our smart devices and checking our social media for the 10th time that day.

This isn’t good! Procrastination can lead to low self-esteem, irrational beliefs, fear of failure, depression, and increased levels of stress. If this sounds like you, or if any of these traits describe you in any way, then this blog post will be great for you!

The Danger of Procrastination

I think this talk really challenges us to recognize the “instant-gratification monkey” in our own lives. Sometimes productivity requires us to put-off instant gratification. This allows us to achieve our bigger picture goals. Thank goodness for our “panic monsters”!

As Tim outlined in this short video though, in situations without deadlines, there is no panic monster to scare away the instant-gratification monkey. Thus, procrastination becomes much more long-term and spread out and can cause us a lot of unhappiness and regret! Because this is a situation none of us want to find ourselves in we need to work on actively overcoming procrastination.

And I think the most concerning thing about this is the fact that many of our personal goals fall into that category! Most personal goals don’t have deadlines and the danger of procrastinating on these goals may be that we never achieve them.

Other goals, such as those set for us by our jobs, often have deadlines. This can lead to our panic monster focusing on helping us to achieve those goals, rather than our own and I think that’s truly scary.

Because, as Tim said, “we’re all procrastinating on something” I believe this is the true danger of procrastination. If we let the instant gratification monkey continually run our lives, our goals will only ever exist in the future and that’s a sad reality.

Some Resources for Overcoming Procrastination

Just to let you know, I am an affiliate for these products. The products are still exactly the same cost for you though. Being an affiliate just means that if you buy one of these products through my link I get a small commission.

That being said, I only suggest products, books, resources, etc. that I fully support. If I don’t think that it’ll help you, then there’s no chance of you finding it on this blog.

Brian Tracy’s “Doubling Your Productivity Video Course”

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How You Can Work On Overcoming Procrastination

Part 1: Recognizing Procrastinating and Identifying its Cause

If you’re constantly putting off important jobs and tasks, whether they have deadlines or not, you may have to admit that you have issues with procrastination. But that’s OK because admitting that you’re struggling with procrastination and recognizing it in your life is the first step to actually overcoming procrastination. 

Here some common examples of procrastination behaviour:

• Continually occupying your time with unimportant and low-priority tasks.
• Leaving particular items on your To-Do list for long periods of time.
• Constantly starting but switching away from high-priority tasks.
• Waiting for the right mood and/or time to complete a particular task.
• Simply avoiding certain tasks that you do not find pleasurable, but know must be completed.

If any of these sounds like you, take some time to reflect. Because it’s possible you may need to begin planning and working towards overcoming procrastination in your life.

After identifying procrastination, attempt to understand why you’re doing it. Is it because you are avoiding boring tasks? Is it because you’re poorly organized and unable to prioritize tasks effectively? Are you a perfectionist whose tendencies are getting in the way of you achieving your goals? Is it because you’re afraid to fail?

All of these reasons can cause us to procrastinate.

After you’ve identified the underlying cause of your procrastination, you can begin implementing strategies to combat and overcome it!

Part 2: Implementing Anti-Procrastination Strategies

Procrastination, whether we’re willing to admit it or not, is a habit. Habits take time and effort to form, and time and effort to break. Thus, you’ll actually have to work on overcoming procrastination to break those bad habits. If you ever hope to overcome it, you will need to practice anti-procrastination strategies.

I’ve provided you with a bunch of possible strategies below that may help you with overcoming procrastination in your life.

Designate a Timeframe

If there’s a task on your To-Do list you have to get done, set a specific timeframe to do it. During that timeframe only focus on that particular task, nothing else.

Think of this timeframe like setting up a meeting with a friend. In these situations, we typically set a specific time to meet, then we stick to it. The vaguer you set this timeframe, the less likely you are to stick to it, so get specific. Don’t get comfortable pushing back loosely set self-imposed deadlines.

If your goal is to write that next chapter for your novel, set a specific timeframe on a specific day to work on that task. If you want to start working out 3x a week, choose the days and times you’re going to go. It’s that easy.

This will help you tackle particular tasks more effectively. You don’t even have to do it all at once. You can do it in intervals. If you can convince yourself to just start, usually your mind will want to see the task through to completion. This will definitely help you with overcoming procrastination.

 Celebrate Your Victories

Reward yourself for getting things done early. If you can positively reinforce anti-procrastination, you’ll be that much more motivated to avoid it. This can be a very effective strategy for overcoming procrastination when done properly.

Reward yourself immediately after avoiding procrastination or successfully implementing another anti-procrastination strategy for the greatest impact on your development! A little positive reinforcement for good behaviour definitely will help you with overcoming procrastination in your life.

Recruit Help

Everyone needs to work on overcoming procrastination, so there’s a need to try to solve this problem in isolation. Recruiting a friend to either help you overcome procrastination is a fantastic approach. Set up a plan to keep each other accountable and on top of things! Never underestimate the power of peer pressure.

Eventually, what you’ll find is that your anti-procrastination behaviour will have become a habit. At this point, you’ll be able to do this independently!

If you get to this point go celebrate!

Be Proactive

Why even give procrastination a chance to get a hold of you!

Get started on tasks as soon as you receive them. Don’t push them to the back burner just because the deadline is far off into the future. Save yourself the stress and start early. Make a plan and set designated timeframes to work on it, and ideally complete it, well ahead of your deadline!

Minimize Distractions

I’m sure we’ve all fallen victim to this. We get working on something, we’re in a nice flow, then our cell phone vibrates or lights up. Then we check the text, it only takes a second after all! We look back to our work, an BAM! 30 minutes have passed!

These devices, though convenient, are huge distractions! It’s been stated the mere sight of your phone in your workspace is enough to reduce your performance. Get rid of the cell, and any other distractions, as you work. If you’re wasting all your willpower on not picking up the cellphone that is right beside you, you’ll only have a little bit left to keep yourself focused on your work. The less energy you waste on resisting distractions, the more you’ll have to help you achieve your goals!

Additionally, we all know how temptations get harder to resist as the day goes on. Sure you can say no to that ice cream in the morning, but what about in the evening after a long hard day of work? Distractions in your work environment are no different. Sure you might be able to avoid Reddit and social media sites like FB and IG at first, but as they remain easily accessible to you, you become increasingly susceptible to caving.

There are many things you can do to reduce distractions:

• Try using software like Rescuetime, StayFocusd or Freedom to block distracting websites
• You can completely shut off the internet for a set timeframe.
• You can lock your social media apps for a few hours.

Not having to deal with these temptations constantly will free you up to staff focused on your goals. You’ll be less likely to give in to procrastination and more likely to implement your anti-procrastination strategies.

Identify Procrastination Consequences

If you can see the consequences and harmful side-effects of allowing procrastination to occur, you’ll be less likely to.

I mentioned some earlier, such as anxiety, depression, increased levels of stress, etc. Nobody wants to willingly allow these negative emotions to enter their life. Why would anyone want them?

So take a few minutes to learn about the negative impacts of not overcoming procrastination.

Break Tasks Down

Sometimes in the face of a large project, we don’t know where to begin. Then we get overwhelmed and just give up trying all together until we absolutely have to.

Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed by these large projects. Just break them down into much smaller and manageable chunks. Then you can allocate time slots to work on each of these chunks and complete them one by one. Before you know it the whole task will be done! That’s another thing off your To-Do list and you’ll be well on your way to overcoming procrastination.

Complete the Hardest & Most Important Tasks First

I’ve always felt that the first 30 minutes of every day sets the tone for the rest of it.

So when you wake up, don’t just roll over and grab your phone to scroll social media for an hour. Get up and get working on your hardest and most important task of the day. This will have two impacts on the rest of your day.

First, the beginning of your day is when you have the most will power and energy. This means it’s the time you’ll be most likely to dial in and focus on that particular task. If you leave it until the end of the day you may not have the willpower remaining to get it done.

Second, if you can complete your most difficult task first, the rest of your To-Do list looks a heck of a lot easier. This will give you the motivation to continue your momentum and get everything else on your list completed as well.

Set Shorter Deadlines for Yourself

If a deadline is far away, it’s not very likely to be deemed as important. Think about it, how many times have you pushed back working on a final assignment you’ve had for months until a few weeks before it was due. Probably more than once or twice right? I know I have.

It’s because the further away from us a deadline appears to us, the less impact it has on our immediate decisions. This leads us to procrastinate on completing it.

This can be solved simply be setting earlier deadlines for yourself to get tasks done and sticking to them. Doing this ensures you actively work on overcoming procrastination on that particular task.

Increase Self-Confidence & Self-Belief

This one is pretty simple. If we believe we won’t be successful at completing a particular task, we’re more likely to procrastinate on it. To avoid this, learn how to increase your self-confidence and self-belief in your abilities.

Learning how to have confidence in your own ability to complete tasks on your To-Do lists can make them seem more achievable. And when things are achievable, you’re more likely to overcome procrastination and get it done!

Embrace Imperfection

If you’re someone who self-identifies as a perfectionist, you know how often trying to be perfect leads to procrastination. Coming up with the perfect project idea, trying to write the perfect paper, or attempting to make perfect decisions is tough! It can be extremely intimidating, so we avoid them altogether.

I experience this type of procrastination whenever I run into “writer’s block”. Whenever this happens though, there is an effective solution. Instead of being perfect, just get started. When I run into writer’s block, I don’t worry about figuring out the perfect sentence to fit into the perfect paragraph. I just write what feels right at that time. I know that I can always come back and make edits afterward.

This ensures that we don’t bring our momentum to a complete stop. Sometimes, just getting something done is better than doing nothing while waiting for that inspiration of perfection.  Once the ball is rolling, you’ll often find ways to keep it rolling and build your momentum. It’s an effective strategy I’ve used multiple time on my journey battling and overcoming procrastination.

Part 3: Final Thoughts 

Breaking your habits and overcoming procrastination is far from easy. If it were simple, not nearly as many people would be struggling with it. I guess it’s a good thing that you’re a motivated and driven individual. Because that means it doesn’t matter whether things are difficult and complicated, you’re able to overcome those challenges and barriers as a member of the Excellence Addiction community. 

It’s true, we may never be able to completely triumph and overcome procrastination entirely. But we can become more aware of it and how to deal with it effectively because we can learn and adapt. By learning how and when to implement some of these anti-procrastination strategies you’ve made it that much easier for yourself. Overcoming procrastination will be as straightforward as it gets if you because you’ll have taken these lessons to heart.

Time to Wrap It Up

I really hope that these tips have encouraged you to tackle procrastination in your life!

Though it might seem difficult, I know you can do it because you have what it takes! If you truly dedicate yourself to this goal I have no doubt that you’ll achieve it. Overcoming procrastination will be a breeze for you if you make a plan and stick to it!

Also, If you enjoyed this article I would highly recommend that you go check out Tim Urban’s post, “Why Procrastinators Procrastinate”. Because it was that post series that was used to create the TED talk at the begging of my post here. He goes into a lot more detail and I have no doubt that you’ll benefit from reading it!

So go out and start tackling this bad habit! But most importantly have fun and stay excellent!

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