Exams are near, the clock is ticking and you are cramming furiously to grab everything before the day of the exam, while cursing yourself for not starting it sooner. We all have undergone this situation, when we feel helpless and decide to never procrastinate, but it happens again and again. Research shows that every human being has a tendency to procrastinate at sometime in his/her life. We make it a habit and sometimes we don’t even realize that we are doing it.
Have you ever asked yourself, “How did this happen? What went wrong? Why did you lose your focus?”
Here are some tips for dealing with procrastination :
1. The first 1 hour of the day is always for work – The problem is, we always have a lot to do, whether it is checking mails or logging into Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for 5 minutes, but that 5 minutes dragged into 4 hours and then you realized that you have wasted half of your day for a never-ending loop of unnecessary things. To deal with this, allot the first one hour of your day for these tasks. If you need to check your emails or the social media sites, do it once in the allotted time and you will find it much easier to shut it off.
2. Analyze yourself – The solution of every problem is hidden within you, so become more self-aware. Procrastination usually comes in two forms : The first one is, there is a difficulty in starting the new task and the other one is getting distracted while working on the task. Next time when you are about to start a task and get an urge to check your mails or the number of comments and likes on your Facebook status, resist the urge and tell yourself that, “I am doing it this one time”.
3. Drop Perfectionism – This is one of the most common reasons of procrastination. People generally avoid making tough decisions and deal with a difficult task. Instead of always aiming for the perfection, just start the projects. If you can’t find a perfect one liner for your assignment, just start writing down anything related to the subject and you will find it later.
“If you never start, you will never have a chance to fail, but you will never have a chance to succeed either”
4. Doubt your doubts – Over thinking is the root-cause of the doubts and doubts cause procrastination. One easy way to deal with this is by shaking your head while thinking those negative thoughts. It may sound weird, but according to a study it is very effective.
5. Beware Excuses – The biggest reason for not doing many things is, we make excuses. The moment we decide to try something new, we start making excuses rather than initiating the work. Be mindful of anything that is expressed like an excuse and label it as such. It is natural, but will stop you getting anywhere.
6. Change Your Thinking – You procrastinate because you think that the work is a burden and you are being forced by someone else to perform a task which you don’t want to do. So, change your thinking from “have to” to “choose to”. Instead of telling yourself that you have to do that work, tell yourself that you choose to do that work.
7. Ask These Questions – Before you start working on any task, ask these three questions to yourself:
-Is this the best use of my time at the moment?
-Am I the best person to perform this task?
-Am I using this task as an excuse to avoid working on something else that’s more important?Now stop reading more on how to overcome procrastination and start your work!