Feeling Procrastinating? These 7 Tips Help You Stay On Track!
Every day we have work to do. Whether it is our daily activities or anything that we plan to do. However, in doing our activities, we sometimes experience some kinds of feeling of not wanting to do what we are supposed to do. We think that we can postpone to do those activities for later. That is called procrastination. What is procrastination anyway? According to Kendra Cherry, a Psychosocial Rehabilitation Specialist, procrastination is an act of delaying high-priority activities with task low-priority in order to do the high-priority later until the last minutes or nearly the deadline. Therefore, to avoid procrastination, here are 7 things that you can do.
- Get Organized
Getting organized will cultivate healthy habits. The first thing that you can do to be an organized person is to wake up early. Try to wake up at the same time every day until you become accustomed to doing that. Waking up early can benefit you in planning your day in the morning because usually there is nothing interrupting you. After that, try to list your reschedule and deadlines. You can write down your activities to remain you. Writing down your activities and schedule is training you to always remember the plan that you are going to do. It will also improve your recall of the planned activities that you have made. Therefore, you are not wasting time. Next, put all your belongings in an organized place. You can separate some stuff and put them into what they belong to make your room look neat and organized. It is also going to help you remember the place of some specific stuff that you have put. Therefore, you will be accustomed to placing your things in the place they belong.
- Minimize Distraction
Distraction may be an annoying thing when we try to be focused. In order to minimize distraction, try to avoid using your phone when you are doing an activity that does not need a phone. When you are using your phone, you will regularly check the notification and not focus on doing your work. Try to make a schedule of what time you will be using your phone so you know what time you can play with your phone. You can also try to silent your phone or turn it off. Therefore. you will not hear the notification sound so you will focus on your work. Another solution, you can try to be more comfortable in doing your work. You can try to choose a comfortable position and sit in the right posture so you can be able to do your work for a long time. If you sit comfortably, you will be more focused on your work because there is nothing bothering you.
- Set your prioritize, goals, and deadlines
Set the date, time, and priority to stay on your track. You can try to set your priority first by eliminating things that are less important to you. You can select what are the most necessary things that you should do in order to get what you want. The reason why people procrastinate is that usually, they don’t know what is essential to them. Next, you can set your goals. List the things that you want to reach or achieve. Setting your goals and listing what you want to get will help you to focus to get what you want. Then make a deadline. You can try to make a timeline of when your work should be done. Without knowing or setting your deadlines will make you underestimate your work. Maybe you will say “there will be tomorrow to finish it” but actually without knowing, there are a bunch of deadlines on the same day that you have to finish. As a result, you are not putting your best effort into your project.
- Do The Hard Thing First
It is sometimes hard to do the task that you don’t want to do. However, when the hard thing is already done, you will feel relief. Therefore, another tip to avoid procrastination is by doing the hard thing first and later you can do the easiest one. Doing the hard thing first will make it easier for you to do the simple thing. You will be accustomed to doing the hard things thus, whenever you try to do simple things, you will be more comfortable doing it.
- Take a Break
According to Oregon State University study, taking a break helps you to relax and reduce stress. take a 10 to 15 minutes break. Set a timer for 25-50 minutes and work for that period of time, then take a break for a few minutes and focus on something else. You can try to listen to music and sing along, take a walk outside to breathe the fresh air or anything to make you relax. For example, we can keep focusing on one
small task periodically. Such as doing 25-minutes of work and then taking a 5 minutes break, will increase our focus and become less daunting.
- Reward Yourself
A piece of advice from psychologist Alexander Rosenthal is based on the theory of diligence. Learn to be diligent, the term was coined by Robert Eisenberg, a professor of psychology at the University of Houston. The way to make it feel good to do a chore is to give yourself a small reward for doing it. In this way, the focus shifts from rewarding the final product to rewarding the performance itself. By combining effort and reward, you can learn to relate work to what you want.
- Tell your friend or family about your goals
It will be easy for you to forget about your work if you are the only person who knows it. Try to tell your friends or family about your goal because usually, they are going to remind you how far you go. When family and friends know your goal, it will give you a feeling of being responsible for your goal. Usually, they will ask about your progress and what are the things you have done in order to achieve your goal. Therefore, when you meet your family or friends, you will have something to say instead of avoiding their questions.
Avoiding procrastination is not an easy job. Therefore, you can try to do 7 things above in order to avoid delaying your activities. However, you can try to make your own plan to avoid procrastination. There is no limitation for you to be creative in order to do your work right on time. These 7 things are just a suggestion for you if you want to know how to avoid the act of delaying your activities. Yes, procrastination is very easy to do but there is a victory of being successful waiting for you. Always be accountable for what you have committed and promised because there is no instant way to get what you want.
Those tips can help you to get away from procrastination and make your daily life more valuable. We can overcome this procrastination and remember, to find yourself mystified by your inability to get important tasks done is to be kind to yourself. Recognize that your brain needs help if it’s going to be less short-sighted. Try taking at least one step to make the benefits of action loom larger, and one to make the costs of action feel smaller. This is another tip from Harvard Business School to make you more understand and aware about procrastination https://hbr.org/2016/07/how-to-beat-procrastination