15 Ways to Overcome Procrastination
Believe it or not the Internet did not create procrastination. People, dating as far back as the Ancient Greeks, have struggled with putting unimportant or more pleasurable tasks in front of important and less pleasurable ones. This simple, yet detrimental mindset of “I will do this tomorrow” has been scientifically proven to increase stress levels and lower one’s well-being. One of the most alarming facts about procrastination is that you’re not alone; 1 in 5 adults are considered chronic procrastinators.
However, the good news is that procrastination does not equal laziness; the inaction is often caused by anxiety, fear of failure or negative perfectionism. Even better news is that there are now scientifically backed solutions to help you beat procrastination.
Here at DELTA we see many business owners tiptoeing on the line of success. And more often than not the only thing holding them back is procrastination. This five-part blog, inspired by Catherine Crawford’s piece in the Entrepreneur, will outline 15 simple and effective strategies our coaches use to help like-minded business owners overcome procrastination.
- Know Yourself
To start, you cannot hope to beat procrastination if you first do not understand how it affects your life. Or if you cannot recognize the habits or tasks that cause you to procrastinate. Understanding these to factors will help provide insight into the causes of your procrastination and will help stop you feeling inadequate when the tasks aren’t completed.
- Practice Effective Time Management
Time management simplifies your working pattern with effective planning, while avoiding stress and improving quality of work. Rather than working sporadically on several tasks and not achieving anything, you work systematically on specific tasks via a clear and structured timeline.
Effective time management is all about setting realistic time estimates for the completion of tasks and comparing the accuracy of estimates across said tasks. Which will accelerate your rate of completion
- Change Your Perspective
Doing the same or similar tasks over and over again can get quite dull and eventually you may loose sight of why you started doing it in the first place, which is something very common in business.
In order for you to get your business back on track our Coaches recommend you change your perspective. Firstly, you need to take a step back and think about what first attracted you to your business. Then look past that and determine what are the benefits to your business of completing these tasks, besides simply doing it because you have to.
You need to re-ignite that passion that drove you to start your business in the first place.
This makes the task at hand less intimidating, thus making it easier to complete. It may also help to re-identify the personal goals you set when you first started your businesses, improving your engagement.
- Commit to Assignments
The end of financial year is fast approaching, which usually means the paper work pile on your desk keeps growing and growing. However, this does not mean it needs to be such a daunting time.
First make a list of all the different tasks that you are confident you will complete. Second, as you complete each task make a point of crossing it off the list. And once you have completed this first list, continue to the harder, more pressing tasks.
Why does this help? This task management strategy helps to rebuild your faith in your own abilities and subconsciously commits you to making good on promises.
- Work in Productive Environments
Did you know that will power is a limited resource that can be depleted like any other form of energy? The more energy you spend resisting distractions (such as television or unrelated websites such as Facebook), the less energy you have to start procrastinating.
This step is all about effectively choosing where you work and who you work with. It is important that you pick an environment that is free from distractions and surround yourself productive people who do not procrastinate.
Not having to deal with the temptation of constant distractions will not only make it less likely that you’ll succumb to momentary temptation, but it will actually give you more energy to focus on your work and avoid procrastinating when you’re tired.
- Be Realistic
Our Business Coaches are consistently approached by businesses who feel like they are working hard but not getting anywhere worthwhile. Nine times out of ten this is because they have not set reasonable or realistic targets to measure their achievements, causing them to consistently fall behind the curve.
Setting realistic KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) helps avoid self-sabotage from unrealistic expectations, as unrealistic goals help feed procrastination. Because, why try the impossible?
But most of all be patient, change does not happen over night!
- Self-Talk Positively
One tacit our Coaches apply to both their daily lives and those of our Clients is positive self talking, as negativity hinders you from achieving something you want and sets you up for failure. Because why strive for something that you already believe is outside your range of capabilities?
Clearing yourself of negative talk gives the brain more motivation and energy to focus on the positive and start working towards a goal. Start by noticing how you talk to yourself when you’re procrastinating and start replacing the words ‘can’t’ and ‘won’t’ with ‘can’ and will’. Soon this will become habit and will stop negative thinking in it’s tracks, encouraging you towards achieving your goals.
- Un-schedule
Rigid schedules can often leave you feeling overwhelmed and burnt-out. Trying to achieve to much will leave you disappointed by all the work that went undone.
Our Coaches recommend you develop and maintain a flexible schedule that only includes the important tasks and leaves plenty of room for extracurricular activities. This will give you room to complete extra work if time opens up in your schedule and leaves you happy with the work that has been completed.
- Swiss-Cheese Tasks
If you can recall from our earlier blogs, time management is one of the most effective strategies to overcoming procrastination. The Swiss-Cheese Technique is a form of time management designed to take the stress out of managing big tasks.
Rather than trying to tackle a big task head on, which is often overwhelming, devote small chunks of time to the big task and try to achieve as much as possible in that time. For example, pick a small task related to the main project and complete it.
By making big tasks look more manageable and less daunting, this tacit creates momentum and reduces obstacles and pressure
- Don’t Indulge Fantasies
Imagination is the enemy of motivation. Fantasizing about desired results inhibits the brain from actively achieving set goals. Instead of fantasizing about what you wish to achieve, devise practical steps to achieve them.
By viewing the outcomes objectively your brain energy increases and quickens the rate of achievement.
- Plan for Obstacles
As you already know, running a small business is rough with distractions; phone calls, urgent emails and much more. While these distractions are still related to your work they tear your attention away from the current task at hand.
In order to effectively avoid being distracted by such things you must plan ahead and allocate a specific time to deal with these obstacles.
Divide your day into 90-minute work cycles, within those 90 minute cycles focus on specific tasks that you have allocated for that particular time slot. After each 90minute cycle, take a 20minute break, during which you can use to deal with any obstacles such as phone calls and emails or even take a break to look at social media and wind your brain down.
- Improve Learning Behavior
Improving learning behavior is one of the more difficult steps in the process because it is about focusing less on gratification in the present and more about gratification in the long term.
By focusing more on learning for the future the brain develops correct behaviors in assessing mistakes and using them to learn and move forward. This improves behavior, stopping the brain being set back by mistakes, combating the brains need to procrastinate.
- Help Yourself
A previous step in our overcoming procrastination process involved putting yourself in effective and distraction free environments. Step 13 ‘Help Yourself’ is similar to that effect because it involves surrounding yourself with people who will not help or let you indulge in your procrastination habits. That way, if you do slip and see yourself falling behind there is no one at fault but you. Leaving you to overcome the issue yourself.
This teaches you to be self-sufficient. By being able to address and overcome issues without outside influence, it guides you towards being independent.
- Reward Progress
Positivity reinforces effort and progress. Our Coaches highly recommend that you reward yourself at the completion of a successful task and similarly arrange small punishments for failures and dropping the ball.
By doing so you provide an incentive that drives you forward to achieve all tasks you have allocated to yourself.
- Learn to Forgive Yourself
Finally, we have reached our last and most important step in our overcoming procrastination blog, number 15 ‘Learning to Forgive Yourself’.
Procrastination is often rooted in your psychology, a common niggle sitting in the back of your mind when you know you’re doing what you’re not supposed to be doing. And unfortunately there is no quick-fix solution, only steps, outlined in this blog, that help chip away and train the brain to be more efficient.
Which is why any slip back down the procrastination slope does not mean the end of the world. Don’t be hard on yourself, forgiving yourself can improve future results, slowly lowering the amount of slips or set backs you have.
You are only human after all!
