Dirty dishes in the sink. Unfolded laundry on the couch. An unwritten research paper on your desktop. An overgrown weed-infested lawn and a bathroom faucet that’s been leaking for weeks.
You look away as if it’s not there and tell yourself it’s fine. That things will get done eventually and that it’s all really not that bad.
Then you go to bed alone while your partner stays up drinking, binge-watching reality TV shows, and talking to other “people” on the internet.
You’re plagued with thoughts of a better life. Of greener pastures. Maybe you’ll find a way to fix or get out of your crumbling relationship. Maybe you’ll start a side business and find a way to escape the job you dread going to everyday. Maybe you’ll find a way out of this house. This relationship. This job. This town.
But you PUT THINGS OFF… Your life is steeped in procrastination.
Your basic needs are met and you think that things can’t possibly get worse – so you become complacent. You settle.
Maybe I should fix this house up and show it some love. Nah, it’s too far gone…
Maybe I should build a prototype of my idea. Nah, don’t have the time or money for that…
Maybe I should start that term paper today so I have time to finish it. Nah, it can wait until the night before…
Maybe I should sit down with my partner and talk about what’s bothering me… Nah, they’ll never listen.
Maybe I should start exercising and taking better care of myself. Nah, I made it this far just fine, and besides, my partner loves me how I am.
This is the type of shit we procrastinate.
And little do we realize what consequences are waiting for us at the end of all this procrastinating…
- Anxiety
- Frustration
- Fatigue
- Resentment
- Guilt
- Depression
- Poor health
- Missed opportunities
So why do we procrastinate then?
Here are some of the most obvious reasons:
- Overwhelm – “There’s way too much going on. I’ll just have to do it later.”
- Uncertainty – “Shit. I have no idea what to do next. I’ll have to figure it out later.”
- Self-Imposed Limitations – “They’ll never give me a promotion. No use busting my ass over this…”
- Perfectionism – “I’ll never get this right.”
- Poor health/sleep habits – “Eh, I feel like shit now. No way I’m getting this done tonight.”
- Instant Gratification Monkey – “Screw this. Angry Birds looks way more fun now.”
According to Neil Fiore’s The Now Habit: “Procrastination is a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.”
Also, people with underlying health issues like ADHD, depression, and OCD are even more susceptible to procrastination.
Personally, I’ve experienced each one of those at varying points in my life. At times, I thought that it was just one thing or two that was fucking with me, but I learned a crucial lesson over the years. When it comes to procrastination, you’ve got to look at the big picture of your life. Think holistically instead of just blaming one thing, person, or event.
[content_upgrade]Content Upgrade Error: You don't have any lists.[/content_upgrade]So, how can you start overcoming procrastination?
Here are 25 simple ways to start overcoming procrastination:
1. Eat that frog
Start your day off strong by doing the task you dread the most. Or the task that you’ve been putting off the longest. Then, even if you get nothing else done, the rest of the day will feel like a breeze.
For example, if you have a big report or article due by end-of-day tomorrow, make that your top priority the following morning. Procrastinating and waiting to start it until noon or even early evening will just make you feel like there’s this big cloud looming over your head all day.
This is one of the main concepts taught in Brian Tracy’s well-known Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.
2. Break complex tasks into smaller ones
When faced with an insurmountable project or task, many of us either freeze in our tracks or crumble under the pressure. Break the big tasks into smaller ones and you’ll find them much more approachable.
One of the best examples of this is with checklists, which are great for reducing decision fatigue and simplifying routine processes/procedures.
3. Celebrate the small wins
Too often, we find ourselves striving for these incredibly ambitious goals and are so focused on the potential outcome that we forget about the small victories along the way. As a result, we become discouraged and sometimes get so burnt out that we switch to another goal or give up on our current goal entirely.
When you celebrate and show appreciation for the small wins, you keep the mojo flowing and create a sense of pride, which helps with overcoming procrastination as you go.
4. Turn off or remove distractions
Photo by William Iven
It’s easy to put things off when your cell phone is within arm’s reach or when you have ten desktop notifications vying for your attention. These distractions hurt our focus and overall productivity. The reason is that every time you are distracted, it takes you about 23 minutes on average to return to the original task (see study by Gloria Mark).
This might not be a big deal if you’re doing late-afternoon administrative work, but it’s a killer when it comes to deep work.
If you find your phone is becoming a huge distraction while working, try placing it across the room or somewhere out of reach while you are working. Alternatively, give Airplane mode a shot. Here’s a great article about the benefits of it: Why using Airplane mode is an immensely powerful productivity hack that can level up your life.
If you feel surrounded by distractions or your environment is too conducive for distraction, try placing yourself in a better environment or context. For example, if you’re a writer, separate from technology and try writing outside with old-fashioned pen and paper. Technology is an integral part of our lives, but it also eats massive amounts of our time. Check out this Art of Manliness podcast with Adam Alter for a great deep-dive on the impact addictive technology has on our everyday lives.
For a list of 100+ apps to help cut distractions, check out Presence, Please: Top 21 Distractions Preventing You From Enjoying Life.
5. Add meaning to it
Can’t get moving? Ask yourself why you’re even doing this task. Is it of life-changing importance? Will you get a look from your wife if you don’t get it done? Is it associated with any meaningful goals in your life?
If a task doesn’t have any meaning to you, you are less likely to get it done or even started for that matter.
6. Have regular reviews
Regular reviews – particularly daily, weekly, and monthly ones – keep you straight on priorities and highlight areas of your life that may need more or less attention. When done right, they keep your goals at the forefront of your mind and make sure your tasks align with your goals. They also drive the actions that get added to your daily to-do lists.
Another hugely important part of reviews is that they showcase your wins and lessons learned, both of which will help your momentum and build resilience. High-speed, low-drag, baby…
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7. Work in sprints
I used to do this with my day-job and still do to a certain extent. Sprints, at least in Agile software development terms, are short durations of time – usually about 2 weeks. In that time, teams agree on a certain scope of work, like a new software feature for example, and then focus on tasks within that time that will lead to delivery of said feature. During this time, there are also daily stand-ups, which are brief status updates from each team member. At the end, they review progress, showcase the product if available, and go over lessons learned.
That’s a very oversimplified explanation, but the concept works well when it comes to overcoming procrastination. Think about it. Your timeframes are short, which is great for preventing burnout. You have an achievable outcome, which makes planning and task management easier. And with every sprint, you build confidence, which makes you less likely to put things off.
8. Declutter
Clutter often creates the delays that lead to procrastination. Think of the time you spend looking for files or tools throughout the day. Think about the time you spend looking for everyday items – keys, wallets/money clips, glasses, clothing.
Do you have so much clutter at your office, work site, home, or on your PC/Mac/smart phone that it takes a significant amount of time to even get one task done? If so, you’re not only hurting your efficiency with the tasks that you are getting done, but you’re also wasting time that could be spent on more meaningful things.
Clutter adds unnecessary stress to our lives, can make us feel overwhelmed, and kill our focus, sometimes making us give up before we even start.
Here’s a great Psychology Today article on the mental cost of clutter and how to remedy it: Why Mess Causes Stress: 8 Reasons, 8 Remedies
For some quick tips on removing digital clutter, check out 9 Shortcuts for Removing Digital Clutter in Record Time.
9. Become comfortable with discomfort
When we are approaching a task that makes us feel uneasy, we are quick to put it off. Whether it’s due to a preconceived bias or our own generalized anxiety, discomfort can quickly dissipate our productivity. Worse, it can cost you your dream
10. Track where your time goes
Do you feel like there isn’t enough time in the day to get things done? Are your days so busy that the tasks you intend to do today keep getting pushed to tomorrow?
For the next few days, keep a log of where your time goes. If you can, try logging your time for a week. There are a lot of apps like RescueTime or Time Doctor you can use to simplify or automate your time-tracking, but pen and paper works too.
Once you’ve got a good log history, take some time to review and look for trends. Are there days/times where you were in a state of flow? How much time did you spend on non-productive activities, like checking your Facebook feed or watching YouTube videos? What meaningful tasks did you have to postpone because of the time you spent doing less meaningful tasks?
With the awareness of time comes a better understanding of what you’re procrastinating on and why.
11. Get some sleep
A small study from the Journal of Organizational Behavior in 2016 revealed that employees procrastinated less when they slept more or had better sleep quality.
It makes sense. When you are sleep deprived, willpower and discipline are the first things to go. Your body just can’t regulate itself as well, so things get easily pushed aside, and you become more distractible and impulsive. You also become prone to procrastinating bedtime, which creates a dangerous cycle of sleep procrastination followed by sleep deprivation, followed by more procrastination and so on…
Interested in some tech hacks to improve your sleep quality? Check out my post on the subject here: Top 10 Tech Hacks to Give Your Body the Sleep it Deserves.
12. Use the 5-second rule
Did you recently come up with a great idea, only to negate that idea moments later with ten reasons you shouldn’t do it? That 5-second delay between thought and action is costing you more than you think.
According to Mel Robbins’ “The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage,” you have five seconds to move once you feel the instinct to act upon a goal. After five seconds, you brain conjures up excuses that lead you to procrastinate.
To put it into practice, you need to count down from five to one when you get an itch to act upon a goal. Then you must immediately and physically act upon that thought.
Here’s a great write-up of the book from the blog of Roman Timochenko: The 5 Second Rule – Book Summary.
13. Inventory what you’re procrastinating on
Photo by Warren Wong
This is more of an exercise in awareness, but it’s a very important one. The first part involves getting out of auto-pilot mode and becoming more aware of your procrastination. To do that, I highly recommend using some of the techniques Leo Babauta talks about in Building Awareness of the Procrastination Urge.
Once you know what you’re procrastinating on, write it out. Then, next to each item, write out what it’s costing you. Is it costing you money? Is it costing you time with your family? What about financial freedom? A promotion? Your happiness?
Awareness of what you’re procrastinating on and the cost association will help you put things in perspective and add some fuel to get you moving again.
14. Build a positive mindset
Part of building a positive mindset is not beating yourself up every time you procrastinate. Even if you’re more prone to procrastination than others, it doesn’t change that we all procrastinate. If you get all flustered about it, recognize the frustration and be forgiving enough to let it go. If you can’t let it go, that frustration is going to sit with you and potentially lead to more procrastination.
A really great way to build a positive mindset is to practice gratitude. Whether it’s done via pen and paper or part of your daily meditation practice, gratitude can have a huge impact on how optimistic you are and your overall confidence. These effects carry over into your tasks and goals, making you more likely to follow through and avoid procrastination.
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15. Eliminate self-imposed limitations
Self-imposed limitations are arbitrary limits we place on ourselves that hinder us from reaching our true potential. Much like stories we create in our mind, these limits are often random excuses we make up so we don’t have to do something. When we don’t think we’re strong enough, or smart enough, or have enough time or the right people…
You can eliminate these limits by setting higher standards for yourself. Go outside your bubble of comfort and find examples of success that will push you to that higher standard. Likewise, surround yourself with peers and supportive people who will help you get there.Overcoming procrastination sometimes starts with this simple task of putting yourself around the right people or the right environment.
16. Use the power of incentives
Procrastination usually comes with rewards. When we put something off, our instant gratification monkey pops out and gets to do what he/she wants. That could be watching YouTube videos, randomly viewing your Facebook feed, checking our email, or just chowing down on junk food. This actually reinforces the habit of procrastination.
Rarely do we consider adding incentives for the tasks we tend to procrastinate on.
You can change that by creating reward contracts for yourself. For example, when you finish that blog post, reward yourself with a nice lunch with your friends. When you finish that big business project, reward yourself to a nice dinner with your spouse. Or when you put in ten miles of running that week, get yourself some new shoes or a new outfit.
The trick here is to use short-term rewards so you integrate positive emotions with the things you’re likely to procrastinate.
17. Get accountable
Photo by Xuan Nguyen
Willpower is a finite resource and there will be times when the stars are all aligned, but yet you still can’t get something done. It’s times like these when you need some consistency and momentum in your life. Perhaps a kick in the ass too…
Being a Marine veteran, I believe that brotherhood is one of the best ways to hold yourself and others accountable.
Life coaches and accountability partners are also great ways to keep you focused on your goals and motivated along the way. This is assuming you can build a solid rapport and keep up a steady cadence with said partner/coach.
There are many accountability sites and tools that can help which I’ve written about in Is Your Life in a Rut? How Accountability Can Help.
18. Use the 80/20 rule
Sometimes, the reason you put things off is because you aren’t seeing results. You’ve got a ton of work – low value and high value – and you’re just grabbing whatever sounds good at the moment. No surprise that your results are suffering and you feel like things are dragging…
With the Pareto Principle, aka the 80/20 rule, the idea is that 80% of your results are driven by 20% of your efforts. So, if you’re focusing on tasks outside of that 20% effort, it’s generally going to take you longer to see results. And when you’re not seeing results, you’re more likely to procrastinate on your current tasks and/or switch to something better…
Apply the 80/20 rule to your work to get an idea of what efforts drive the most success. The results you get will reinforce your focus and hinder you from further procrastination.
19. Batch similar/routine tasks
Many working people go through their workday in reactive mode, picking up work as it comes in, responding to shoulder taps, working on important tasks until they get disrupted, and so on. This leads to a lot of repetition and resource waste, which makes also you more susceptible to procrastination.
Many people instinctively know when they’re spending a lot of time repeating the same steps. It’s one of the reasons we get annoyed when we impulsively leave to pick up something at the store and realize later that we could’ve saved time if we just dropped by the store on the way home from work.
Want to try batching in the office? Try creating blocks of time to do similar tasks and stick to those windows. Or if you know you’re going to be using a certain tool or app at a given time, why not use that time to knock out other tasks that use the same tool or app? Opening up Outlook at dedicated times to respond to emails or help customers is a good example of this.
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20. Single-handle tasks instead of multi-tasking
A prized concept of the modern-day workplace, multi-tasking is the idea that we can get multiple things done at the same time. However, when we think we’re multitasking, what we’re really doing is switch-tasking – rapidly switching our attention from one thing to another. This switching eats up a lot of our mental resources and often takes more time than if you were to handle a task independently. Take the brief multitasking test here to see what happens when you try to multitask.
If you still want to achieve the magical unicorn of multitasking, your best chances are with tasks that use different parts of the brain or in situations where one of your tasks is automatic, like running on a treadmill while listening to an audio book. However, even in cases like these, you’re still not 100% multi-tasking.
As the test above may have alluded you to, multitasking is efficient and ineffective, and will only lead you to further delay things you’ve already been delaying.
21. Get inspired
Photo by Hannah Olinger
Do you have a task that deep down you really want to do, but you’ve had a bad day and can’t seem to move forward on it? Change your state and get inspired.
If you’re not sure where to start or look, Lori Deschene wrote a useful post for tiny buddha called 50 Ways to Find Inspiration. The ideas range from web-based things like watching a TED talk or reading an inspirational blog post, nature-based activities like hiking or yoga in the park, and even introspective activities like journaling or letting go of something that isn’t serving you.
22. Visualize
Visualization is an inspirational way to get us moving when we’re stuck (or continuously putting things off). When we can picture in our minds the thing we’re wanting or striving for, the desire to achieve it becomes stronger and more realistic. If you take visualization a step further, and imagine the process (e.g., the steps to achieve it), the idea becomes doable too.
Here’s a study from UCLA showing why it’s important to include the process when you’re visualizing your goal: From Thought to Action: Effects of Process-Versus Outcome-Based Mental Simulations on Performance.
23. Align your tasks with your top 3-5 goals
One reason you tend to give up on things is because you’re stuck wading through the muddy swamps of mundane or tedious low-value tasks. Other times, you have what seem to be high-value tasks, but they line up with goals that aren’t really important to you now.
The problem with either scenario is that you’re not focused on tasks that add meaning to your life now. Instead, you’re too busy being “productive” with low-value tasks and ending your days with little to no fulfillment. In the process, your “busy-ness” with the low-value tasks is forcing you to procrastinate the good stuff even more.
The workaround? Make a complete list of goals for your life and settle on only your top 3-5. Ignore the remaining goals until you achieve those top 3-5 goals.
Now, when you do your daily and weekly planning, try to stick to tasks that align with those top 3-5 goals. For example, if you have a goal of losing 25 pounds in the next 3 months, you should probably have some regular tasks revolving around diet or exercise.
Inevitably, there will be tasks that don’t align with your goals (e.g., honey-do’s and emergency-type tasks), but the aim is to keep your tasks as centered around those top goals as possible.
24. Develop the “next action” habit
It’s easy to procrastinate when you’re staring at a mile-long list of tasks for your next project. Even if you know what to do, the fact that you have SO MUCH to do is overwhelming.
Instead of worrying about all the things you need to complete for your project today, just pick one action that you have to do next. Don’t worry about the task that’s planned for tomorrow or ten tasks from now. Just focus on what you have to do next, and when you’re done with that, pick the next action.Then, rinse and repeat.
Focusing on the next action on your list instead of the entire list is a great way to minimize anxiety and make continual incremental progress to your goals.
25. Make time for play
Photo by Robert Baker
Many procrastinators feel so busy and overworked that they feel they have no time for themselves, or no time to really enjoy life. They easily engage with mind-numbing distractions because they need an escape, an outlet, something that will give them a glimpse of joy and excitement in life.
If you already know you’re going to waste an hour of your day skimming your Facebook feed, why not just add an hour of play time to your schedule upfront? You can schedule an hour to do the things you usually do when procrastinating, or you can do something fun – something exciting – that you’ve been putting off for even longer. You can work on a book, join a gym and work out, relax at the beach, start a new sport, go for a hike, or cook up a delicious meal for yourself. The choices are endless.
When you make time for play, especially right in the middle of a busy workday, it breaks up the monotony of work, allows you to re-center, and gives your brain a clean ready-to-work slate. The end result is more focus, more engagement, less distractibility, and a better chances of overcoming procrastination.
Final Words on Overcoming Procrastination
Is your life steeped in procrastination?
Do you feel guilty for not finishing a project you started a year ago?
Did you recently get passed up for a promotion or a business opportunity because you waited until the last-minute and had to rush things?
Are you resentful toward life because you aren’t where you where want to be and you’re not making progress in the areas you want to make progress in?
The truth is that we all procrastinate, and there are many reasons for it. Overwhelm, uncertainty, generalized anxiety, and perfectionism are just a few, but mental health disorders like ADHD can play a huge reason too. I should know personally as overcoming procrastination has been one of my biggest challenges with ADHD.
That being said, you should pick the strategies that work best for you and your current situation. Procrastination is always on standby ready to tag in, but if you lay the hammer down and put in some strategies now to get ahead of it, you’ll be primed for success.
Then, you can look back a week from now and revel in all your anti-procrastination glory: your freshly mowed grass, your empty kitchen sink, the amazing sex you had last night because you worked on your relationship, and that dream job you just landed because you updated your résumé and went to that interview. Yes, all that can happen if you stop procrastinating and take action.
Are you ready to stop procrastinating now?
Share in the comments what you’ve been procrastinating and what’s worked for you or what hasn’t. What strategies, here or elsewhere, would you be willing to try to take control and overcome procrastination today?
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