Five Unique Ways to Deal With Procrastination

If you didn’t procrastinate, you’d be one of the most powerful people in the world. You’d utilize your time effectively and get a lot of things done each day. Over time, that’s an incredibly powerful way to live.

Unfortunately, we all seem to have a villain inside that tries to thwart our plans at every turn. He makes every other activity seem so enjoyable and the thing we need to do so unenjoyable.

Procrastination can be an incredibly challenging obstacle to overcome.

Deal with your procrastination and beat the villain inside with these strategies:

1. Do the task immediately. The longer you think about doing something, the more reasons your mind will invent to keep you from doing it. Have you ever noticed how you get a great idea, but then you talk yourself out of doing it? It’s the same idea.

◦ Before you have a chance to think about it, just do it. The longer you linger, ponder, think, relax, or stall, the less likely you’ll be to do anything. You only have a few seconds to take action before your brain will start getting in your way. 1-2-3-GO!

2. Set a time limit. This can be especially helpful when tackling a big task. Rather than trying to do it all at once, tell yourself that you’ll work for an hour, or 30 minutes, or whatever works for you. Knowing that you have a set ending point can ease the challenge of getting started.

◦ Once you get busy, you might find that you just keep on working after the time has expired.

◦ Using a timer is also a great way to focus your attention. It’s interesting how much more you can accomplish when you’re racing against the clock.

3. Only do a tiny bit. Getting started is often the most difficult part. Make it so easy to get started that you can’t possibly fail. Need to write a history paper for school or a report for work? Tell yourself that you’re just going to do one paragraph. If that’s too hard, make it a single sentence.

◦ Again, after you get started, you might decide to keep on going. It’s amazing what a little momentum can do.

4. Start with the big items. We like to start the day with the easy things, the things that won’t take too much time. Unfortunately, the longer you put off doing the bigger stuff, the harder it is to get started on it.


◦ Avoid this situation by attacking those bigger, less pleasant tasks first thing in the morning. Save the easy stuff for later in the day. You’ll be able to have a more peaceful afternoon.

5. Figure out your primary distractions at the moment and do them later. Those distractions can be so appealing. Whether it’s texting your friend about the weekend or playing a few more games of Candy Crush, distractions are more enjoyable than doing what actually needs to be done.

◦ Use your distractions as rewards. Tell yourself you can do the thing you really want to do after you get a certain amount of work completed. You’ll get your work done and still have fun before the day is over.

How much do you procrastinate? How much does it impact your life? What could you accomplish if you could greatly reduce your procrastination?

There are many strategies for dealing with procrastination. The trick is to figure out which one works most effectively for you. Try the methods above and any other methods that appeal to you. Decide for yourself how to best manage your procrastination tendencies.

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Do the Hard Things First

We don’t want to do the hard things. We like to do the enjoyable things. If something isn’t enjoyable, then we at least want it to be easy.

Yet, the enjoyable things often aren’t very helpful. And the easy things usually don’t provide a lot of return for our time.

The ability to make yourself do the hard things is a big determiner of how successful you’ll be.

For example:

• Squats are hard. Leg extensions are easy. Guess which is more effective for strengthening your legs.

• Cold calling expired listings is hard. Holding an open house is easy. Guess which is more effective for making money as a real estate agent.

• Sweeping a floor is easy. Scrubbing a floor on your hands and knees is hard. You already know which is going to clean your floor more effectively.

Consider these ideas:

1. You have more energy and focus early in the day. It’s easier to do challenging things earlier in the day. You’re more effective at 9:00 AM than you are at 3:00 PM. Attack the hard thing when you’re fresh. It’s only going to be more challenging later in the day.

2. You can spend more time on the hard thing. If you wait until later to do the hard thing, you might run out of time to complete it. Since the hard thing is often the most important thing, you should spend enough time on it to complete it.

3. The rest of the day is more enjoyable. If you have something unpleasant hanging over your head all day, you just can’t enjoy the day as much. Get the hard thing off your plate, so you can enjoy the remainder of your day.

◦ “If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.” - Mark Twain

4. It builds self-esteem and confidence. Everyone else avoids the hard things. Be the person that attacks them. You’ll feel great about yourself and know that you can do anything that needs to be done.

◦ Your potential increases greatly when you can reliably get yourself to do unenjoyable tasks.

5. It can help your career. Once you’re known as the person that can do the hard things, you’ll be highly respected and considered reliable. Most people have excuses for not doing the hard thing.

6. Avoid thinking too much about it. It’s best to get started on your hard thing without spending too much time thinking about it. It’s like eating the frog. Just eat it. You don’t want to stare at it all day. The frog only becomes bigger and uglier over time.

7. Decide what your “frog” is for the day. The night before, determine what your most awful task is for the next day. Schedule it as early in the day as possible. When the time comes, attack that frog with everything you’ve got.

Some tasks are just unpleasant. There are even unpleasant tasks which provide little value but must be done. It’s best to get your unpleasant tasks done as soon as possible.

If the unpleasant task is high value, it deserves to be accomplished first. If the unpleasant task is low-value, just get it out of the way as soon as you can.

If you can reliably do the hard things first, you’ll find that you’re much more successful.

Related reading: https://www.discoveryhub.net/how-to-stop-procrastinating-right-now.html

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