How to avoid procrastination: 5 useful tips

In today’s world, procrastination seems to have become one of the largest enemies of our productivity. Not being able to find ways to break this habit has a potential to destroy our path to success. It is normal for every single person to want to earn more money, be more successful, have nice things and nice home, but the key to achieving such goals is to get more and better results. People, who experience the resistance towards starting tasks and completing projects, often try to solve this problem by setting some goals or creating time management schedules, however, more often than not, the things that truly work for you and motivate you to get started are way more simpler and manageable

1. Break down big projects into little steps

The bigger the project, the more it overwhelms you, the more you avoid to do it. If you use a work calendar, in stead of writing down when you are going to start the project and when is the deadline, just separate the whole thing into smaller, more manageable parts and assign each little task a different day in your calendar. This way you won’t be so overwhelmed by all of the projects that tend to pile up at the worst moment.

2. Add a time limit to a task

Make sure that these little pieces of work can be done in more or less one sitting or simply set a time limit for each step. Don’t push yourself beyond that time period and just move on to another task. At the end of the day, even if you’re not fully done with any of the tasks, you will still feel as if you got a ton of stuff done just because you’ve touched upon a few different things. However, you might notice that once that one hour or 30 minutes you set on your timer is up, you might still feel like you’re in a flow and want to continue working, which is why spending even five minutes on a task might be an effective way to subconsciously force yourself to finish it.

3. Reward yourself

Set up a system that helps you celebrate your progress and reward yourself for achieving even the smallest goals. There are number of ways you can do it and it depends purely on you: it may be a tasty snack waiting for you as you go along, an activity with a friends once you complete some tasks or just some time to treat yourself. You can also try to create a positive space to work in: pay attention to the music, lighting, sitting position, overall mood of the room or office and adjust in a way that suits you. You should feel comfortable and motivated in such environment to reach an ultimate state in which you will manage to continue working without distractions and in which you will be able to be in the zone and on the roll.

4. Eliminate all of the distractions for an hour

One of the main things that contribute to our procrastination and bad habits nowadays is social media and various apps and interruptions provoked by smart phones and easy ways to pass time. Help yourself avoid these distraction by putting away these gadgets or turning off notifications for some apps for at least 20 minutes to begin with. It is best to put your phone out of arm’s reach as you might unconsciously check it either way. You can also download an app that tracks how much you use and pick up your phone everyday, which will show you just how addicted you are to your smartphone and perhaps motivate you to take some steps to change that. Some of those apps also help you create daily limits on your phone usage which is a great way to use things around you to your advantage, as well.

5. Try to be productive earlier in the day

If you’re a freelancer or have a very flexible time schedule, you might want to start working on the first half on a day since it is the most productive time of the day. Wake up earlier and start fresh because that is when you are really going to give every task your full attention. Whereas, later in the day you will feel tired and more distracted: this is the time of day where you should take on easier tasks that do not require as much effort and mental focus.