Table of Contents:
What is Procrastination
Procrastination is the act of putting off work, whether physical or mental. Procrastination can hurt you because it limits the work you can get done and also the growth that you can experience from exercising, learning or furthering your career.
Figure out what you need to do
The first important step to defeating procrastination is to figure out what you need to do each day. It is important to stay organized in this matter. For an easy first step, I would try writing down everything you need to do on a scrap piece of paper. Then I would try to do the easiest thing first in order to get into a rhythm. I think it is important to get into a rhythm because it takes energy to keep stopping and starting and it is hard to maintain motivation to complete all your goals. My advanced tip would be to try to organize your to-dos daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. I think what is important is that you make sure you write everything down in order to not forgot.
Now that you have things to accomplish, the next difficult thing might be figuring out how to accomplish it. Say you have a big goal such as planning a science fair project. You have to figure out your idea, and then break down all the small parts, such as gathering materials, forming a hypothesis, experimenting, and putting together your board. This lead to the next point:
Breaking down tasks into the easiest steps
It is crucial to break down big tasks because you will be too overwhelmed to do anything and most likely you will procrastinate. For example you want to get better at going to the gym but you always seem to skip. Start by breaking it down and just doing twenty pushups a day, and if that is too hard just do five a day. It is important to be consistent and you will eventually build the habit of exercising everyday even just doing five push ups a day.
Removing Distractions
To be honest I get distracted very easily, like I will avoid doing work like the plague. I get distracted by every device, my phone, iPad, laptop, nintendo switch heck even my parents computers. But to defeat procrastination you need to remove all distractions. Give your devices to a family member and ask them to hide it for you. You can also use a browser Intention https://www.getintention.com/ which works with Firefox and Chrome.
Use timers
I have used timers and I have to admit that they are pretty effective. When using a timer I would work in thirty minute chunks because after that time you usually start to lose focus. Timers help to keep you focused while you are working and also help you keep track of how long you are working on something for.
Mindset
Most of the stuff covered in this article so far has been relatively generic, but the way I believe it is that focusing is a skill that can be built up over time. In order to stay super motivated while avoiding procrastination you need to think you are developing focus overtime which is a slow process.
When trying to prevent procrastination it is important to build good habits that help to reinforce your focus when completing tasks. When I come home from school I always try to start my work.
Procrastination is not something that will be fixed overnight, and defeating it is like fighting a boss in a video game, it requires strategy, focus, and the writing tools.