6 Ways to Stop Procrastination

As we know Procrastination is the thief of time.  It’s also an incredibly difficult habit to shift. Sadly there are no plug and play solutions available to stop procrastination and the only way to remedy this dangerous phenomenon is to recognise it for what it is and decide to stop doing it all the time. Now – not later.

Start with the small stuff

It’s so easy to put off the small things till later – until they become bigger, more annoying things. A good way to stop procrastinating is to start with those little tasks: Do the dishes now ! Put the washing on now! By starting to actively make yourself DIN – Do It Now – with the less important things you can soon build the habit and you will actually be giving yourself more time to spend on the bigger stuff.

Write lists and stick to them.

Again this is habit forming – good habits instead of bad. Procrastination is the little parrot on your shoulder that keeps telling you to do it later – give him a cracker and shut him up for a while.

Eat a frog first

It’s often the stuff we really don’t want to do that leads to wasting a ton of time. If we train ourselves to do those first then it’s all skiing downhill from there. Much easier.  Put what you see as the thing you least want to do – the unpleasant task you dread – first on the list and get it out of the way.

Reward yourself when you stop procrastinating

Give yourself a little reward for doing a task – especially the frog-eating thing! Tell yourself you’ll have a break, have a coffee and a biscuit AFTER you’ve eaten the frog (you’ll want to get that taste out of your mouth anyway) and NOT as a way of putting it off till later: Task = reward – it’s never the other way round.

Set an Alarm.

This might seem over the top but a colleague posted a video on this today and it makes sense. If you give yourself a reasonable time to complete a task (and get a reward) and actually set an alarm on your phone, Ipad, whatever you’ll find it doesn’t half focus the mind.

Monitor the results.

Do all of the above for a week and look back on it. You’ll be surprised how much more productive you’ve been. Lots of little un done task tend to build up in the back of your mind and actually clog you up.

You just know they are out there clamouring for your attention until the clamouring becomes annoying and you do them – why not train yourself to just stop procrastinating and get it done. You’ll thank yourself in the long run and in the short run you’ll get lots of little rewards.