PROCASTINATION: Deadly and poisonous

Have you ever decided to carry out a particular task at a particular time and then all of a sudden you decided to postpone it, then,when the day came for you to actually carry out that task again, you see yourself postponing it again and that’s how it keeps going until you actually run out of time, and then you end up rushing the whole thing and it gets ruined? If yes, then I guess I’m not the only one on that track🤦.

I’ve been battling with Procrastination for some years now and it hasn’t been going pretty well. Just recently, I discovered a way on how we could overcome this procrastination and decided to share.

In this article I’m going to be explaining, what procrastination is, why people procrastinate, why we need to fight procrastination and how we could fight procrastination.

What Is Procrastination?

Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished by a certain deadline. It could be further stated as a habitual or intentional delay of starting or finishing a task despite knowing it might have negative consequences.

A lame man would say: Procrastination is shifting what you want to do today to tomorrow.

Procrastination can also be defined as, Trouble persuading yourself to do the things you should do or would like to do.

When you procrastinate, instead of working on important, meaningful tasks, you find yourself performing trivial activities.

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well”

Why Do people Procrastinate?

“The more time you have to do things, the less you are able to get done.”

Procrastination is driven by a variety of thoughts and habits but fundamentally, we avoid tasks or put them off because we do not believe we’ll enjoy doing them, and want to avoid making ourselves unhappy, or we fear that we won’t do them well. People may also procrastinate when they are confused by the complexity of a task (such as filing one’s taxes) or when they’re overly distracted or fatigued.

Why do we need to fight Procrastination?

Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.

“The greatest thief this world has ever produced is procrastination, and he is still at large.”

Procrastination is one of the main barriers blocking you from getting up, making the right decisions and living the dream life you've thought of.

Recent studies have shown that people regret more the things they haven't done than the things they have done. In addition, feelings of regret and guilt resulting from missed opportunities tend to stay with people much longer.

Sometimes all our opportunities seem to be on our fingertips, but we can't seem to reach them. When you procrastinate, you waste time that you could be investing in something meaningful. If you can overcome this fierce enemy, you will be able to accomplish more and in doing so better utilize the potential that life has to offer.

We now know that the world today is conducive to procrastinating and learning how to overcome it is, therefore, one of the most important skills you can learn.

How can we overcome procrastination?

Firstly I would say;

The only way you can overcome procrastination, is if you decide not to procrastinate 📌

Take a few seconds and say to your self; “I will try as much as possible not to procrastinate again”

I guess you’ve made up your mind, you are willing to stop procrastinating and you want to know how you can actually do it.

Here are a few tips:

Plan your task — Know what you are doing:

Have a clear understanding of what your about to do. Write them down. Create a to-do list. Don’t just imagine them in your head, have a book where you write down the things you wish to achieve for a particular week, with this you can be able to track down what you have achieved so far, what else is remaining for you to achieve and how much time you have left.

Writing down your daily task gives you motivation to actually complete them.

Remove distractions:

As obvious as this seems, we don’t do it enough. When we are focusing on a task, we need to remove anything that can distract us. Turn off notifications, or apps that cause notifications.

Yes, that social media you’re always active on, turn it off! Until you are done.

Do not be available —Isolate yourself:

Mark yourself with “Do not disturb!” if you need to be able to receive messages. Set your phone to DND as well. Use headphones, they indicate that you are busy and shouldn’t be disturbed, and you don’t need to have music on!

If someone does try to call you, then either let them get the answering machine or answer and ask if you can call back in a short period of time.

If someone physically comes to you, ask if it’s urgent then either accept the disturbance or ask if you could get back to them in few minutes.

Work Smarter:

Get yourself into a mindful state where you can focus solely on the task at hand. Strive for inspired laziness, so you actually end up working on the right thing faster.

Don’t be an ass:

In a situation where you are working in a team;

Add this as a reminder that as important it is to focus on personal productivity, it shouldn’t trump the team’s overall productivity. Part of being a valuable team member is to actually be available to your team members. If you always say “no” because you’re busy then you are saying that you value your own time more than theirs. Your team karma (and value) will go down.

If you on the other hand do actually gauge the urgency of a request and allow yourself to be distracted when it’s really important then you will also be respected for saying no when the request isn’t urgent. But you have to follow-up, otherwise you aren’t being a reliable team.

Don’t give up!

As with any habitual change, this is going to be hard to do. Even if you see great improvement, your mind will lure you back towards procrastination and non-work. Be aware that this will happen. Don’t beat yourself up, but rather acknowledge it then continue with what you are supposed to be doing.

Keeping a log of every time you break your desired habit is a great way to follow-up and help you stick with the change.

Now that you have successfully followed this few tips, procrastination shouldn’t be a problem to you again.

Please, do well to applaud and follow me.

Remember 📌

Good luck to achieving your goals👍💖.

I would like to hear your thoughts on this matter — How do you set yourself up for successfully getting things done and avoid procrastination? Feel free to drop off a comment or reach out to me.