Do you have a deadline looming, but instead of doing your work, you fiddle with miscellaneous things like social media, checking email, and watching videos? Are those household chores piling up because you just have to get to your next level up in that video game? Is your car a disaster area because it seems like a pain to take it to the wash? Well my friend, you probably suffer from procrastination. Some procrastination is normal but it can easily spiral out of control if you do not take steps to stop it. Here are 5 quick tips on how to stop procrastinating and get things done.
Stop Procrastinating With These 5 Tips
1. Create A Short Daily To-Do List
Every morning when you wake up, create a very short daily to-do list. Just list 2 or 3 items that you absolutely want/must get done. No more than that. Keeping it short will help prevent you from feeling overwhelmed. A large list will seem daunting and it can cause you to give up on it before you even begin one task! Keep it short and at the end of the day, when you have those few items checked off, you will be amazed at how much more motivated you will be for the next day.
2. Break Your Work Into Several Steps
Many items on your to-do list have several tasks related to them. Try breaking each item down into their individual parts. For instance, if you have to organize your ever-growing pile of mail, just grab a handful. Look through each and put them in a trash pile and a take action pile. Don’t go any further. Come back later, grab another handful and repeat until you are sitting there with two piles. At that point, throw away the trash pile and begin working on the take action pile. Grab a handful at a time… you get the drift.
3. Create A Detailed Timeline With Tight Deadlines
For bigger projects, having a single deadline for the whole task is an invitation to procrastinate. It is human nature to keep pushing everything back, until it is too late. As soon as you have a project, break down your work into small steps (see tip 2) , but this time create a timeline that has tight deadlines for each task. Treat each task with the same importance and urgency as the overall task. Doing so will keep you accountable to finishing the job.
4. Reward Yourself
Sometimes we forget to reward ourselves for a job well done. When you complete your daily to-do list, plan to give yourself a special treat. It doesn’t have to be big like shopping for power tools or going to watch tonight’s game. Although those certainly can be motivating. Rewards can also be little things that can be done quickly and easily. “If I get the lawn mowed by 10 am, I’m going to have myself an early beer.” “If I get all my items done on my to-do list today, I’m going to practice some putting on my way home after work.”
5. Do Two-Minute Tasks
Two Minute tasks are an excellent way to overcome procrastination and I love these. Especially when tasks are easily broken down in to parts. Usually in the evening when there is something that I’ve been putting off, I’ll wait until a commercial comes on if I’m watching a show or game and knock out a couple of things. Fold my laundry? Check. Take out the garbage for tomorrow? Check. Sign my sons permission slips? Check. Pay the mortgage? Check. Those are four tasks that can be knocked out during the course of a half hour TV show. Try it with anything, even exercise.
There are many ways to stop procrastinating but these 5 will get you well on your way to get things done. Try these and see how much more accomplished you will feel.
You might also like
Leave A Reply