How to Overcome The Procrastinating Habit
THE IMPORTANT TASKS DELAYING HABIT
It’s starting from 8 a.m. on Monday morning when you were in office and planned to get your tasks done. Yet, there were many hours almost the whole morning or until the whole, you’re trying to spend those hours on re-checking your email, scrolling up and your social media, take a coffee and chitchat with colleagues at the office water cooler, do the excessive preparation, and others miscellaneous tasks. And, seriously, there was not just a day but your whole week almost it killed up your whole morning with these kinds of things. Furiously, you’re trying to complete the tasks in Friday afternoon, and before its deadline as of the clock tickling at 5 p.m.
It sounds like you are being in this situation, don’t you? So, how did it come to your life? Is there anything going wrong about your day? Or, you’re the laziest person as you may blame yourself like this so often, ain’t you?
It’s time now to recover your routines, by NOT cursing yourself for not accomplishing the tasks from the earlier of the week again and again.
Actually, being lazy is not so crucial as procrastinating do. Laziness, means you’re not doing, inactivity, or no feeling on taking the action but procrastination is an active process to push you on doing something else which not or almost not related to the important tasks you should do to accomplish your goals or your daily work. It means you know that there are important tasks in front of you, but you still choose to pause it and be in favor of one of another that’s more enjoyable or easier. So that the main tasks are delayed. It leads to miss out of achieving your goals or reduce all your work productivity and make you become deconcentration, disillusion, and demotivated with your current work, or even more serious in extreme cases when you procrastinate over a long period of time.
STOP!! THE PROCRASTINATION LESS AND PRODUCTIVITY MORE
It depended on case and time, however, you can stop it! There is no impossible to overcome your procrastination since it’s your habit. And, there are some steps to cope with such the procrastinate are figuring out whether you’re procrastinating or not, then find out what is the root cause of your procrastinating, and finally, you can solve it based on the reason cause you procrastinating, and they’re so to do as follows.
Recognize Your Procrastination
Firstly, let see the recognition of your procrastination. Maybe, it can be confused with your daily activity of accomplishing the tasks, but you can recognize by it makes you start to put things off indefinitely because of avoiding to do something, then you probably are in the diagnosis something as, for example, filling your day with the low-priority tasks or filling your time with unimportant tasks that other people ask you to do, instead of getting on with the important tasks already on your list; leaving item(s) on your To-Do list for a long time, even though it’s important yet no action; reading your emails several times over without making any decision on what to do with them; starting a high-priority task and then go off to make a coffee, or chitchat at your office water cooler; or waiting to be in “right mood,” or waiting for the “right time” to tackle a task.
Identify the Root Causes, Why You’re Procrastinating
Then you need to understand about yourself a reason why you’re so procrastinating, it allows you about the clue to tackle your steps against that bad habit. For example, you’re trying to avoid some particular tasks due to boring or unhappy with the current tasks more often. If you realize that, so you have to take action quickly in order to allow yourself more focus on the aspects of your job that you find it more enjoyable.
Another root cause is poor organizing, it also can be cause yourself procrastinating. So if you’re a well-organized person, you’re the one who can overcome it more successfully because of your well-prepared or using the TO-DO prioritized well and creating effective schedules for yourself. If your root cause by this, the tools that can help you to organize your tasks by priority and deadline is your way of solution. However, there still be overloaded by your tasks even you’re organized one, it maybe you have doubts about your ability or maybe too worried about your failures. So you’re putting it off and seeking comfort in doing work that you know that you’re capable of completing. Some people fear success as much as failure. Because of the confusion of their mindset, they don’t whether to cope with and different by the fixed or growth mindset in people, and they think that success will lead to them being swamped with requests to take on more tasks.
Otherwise, people who demand perfectionism on completing the tasks or things, they’re often procrastinating. Often, they’d rather avoid doing a task that they don’t feel they have the skills to do than do it imperfectly. Another major cause of procrastination is poor decision-making, likewise, if you can’t decide what to do, and where to go on the next move, you’ll likely put off taking action in case you do the wrong thing.
Some Strategies or Tools to Overcome Your Procrastinating Habit
Procrastination, yes it is a habit, which means a deeply ingrained pattern of people’s behavior. Probably, it cannot break out easily or say a day or overnight due to a habit, the only choice you have is to avoid practicing the habit daily or change to another good routine that makes your days instead of this. There are as many strategies of practicing you may interest to try and give yourself a possible chance to change your routines of succeeding as follows.
The first thing to do is don’t blame yourself, or don’t curse yourself for not doing this earlier. Now, it’s not the time for cursing yourself, it’s time to forgive all your past, and it can help you to feel more positive in your way to reduce the likelihood of procrastination in the next or the future. Then it’s time to take action quickly to commit to the task. Only focus on doing, not avoiding, and list up all tasks that you need to complete, and specify a time for doing them. This will help you to proactively tackle your work. Next, let’s give yourself a reward for completing your hard task on time for motivation such as a slice of cake or a coffee from your favorite coffee shop, or delicious dining you prefer for long ago but not really have time to. And make sure you notice how good it feels to finish things! If you feel not good at all to control about this, please ask someone to check up on you. This is the principle behind self-help groups, the peer pressure works! If you don’t have anyone to ask, an online tool such as Procraster or your phone application reminder or google calendar, or some app that can help you to self-monitor. On the way of coping with procrastination, act as you go, and tackle tasks as soon as they arise, rather than letting them build up over another day which is too long to make you feel boring or unpleasant on doing it.
After that, rephrase your internal dialog and the phrases “need to” and “have to,” for example, imply that you have no choice in what you do. This can make you feel empowered less and might even result in self-sabotage. However, saying, “I choose to,” implies that you own a project, and can make you feel more in control of your workload. Minimize your distractions, keep yourself on stay focusing mood, and turn off your email and social media, and avoid sitting anywhere near a television or keep an available duration of focusing without bothering from others while you work! Furthermore, let’s say, aim to “eat an elephant beetle” first thing, every day! Get those tasks that you find least pleasant out of the way early. This will give you the rest of the day to concentrate on work that you find more enjoyable.
In addition, if you drive in a procrastinate because of disorganized yourself, there are six strategies to help you get organized well.
- Keep a To-Do List.
- Prioritize your To-Do List using Eisenhower’s Urgent/Important Principle.
- Become a master of scheduling and project planning.
- Tackle the hardest tasks at your peak times.
- Set yourself time-bound goals.
- Use task- and time-management apps.
For more on coping with procrastination, you may read another article on my website such as a simple way to cope with procrastination.
In conclusion, procrastination can restrict your potential and undermine your career, which means ruin your dream and destroy your way to grow for your life goal. At work, it can also disrupt teamwork, reduce morale, and even lead to depression and job loss. So, it’s critical to take proactive steps to prevent it. Of course, procrastination is the habit of delaying an important task, usually by focusing on less urgent, more enjoyable, and easier activities instead. It is different from laziness, which is the unwillingness to act. Therefore, the first step to overcoming procrastination is to recognize them which means about what you’re doing, whether there is any sign of procrastinating or not. Then you can identify the reasons behind your behavior and use appropriate strategies to manage and overcome it.
Last but not least, and I would love to suggest two books for further reading as follows.
