3 Simple Tips to Overcome Procrastination and Get Things Done

Everyone experiences procrastination. Talk to anyone, and they’ll likely tell you about something they need to do and haven’t started yet. They’re procrastinating, whether they want to admit it or not. It’s always easy to say you’ll do something, plan it out, envision its completion, and then wait to do it. There are plenty of reasons why people procrastinate, and despite how simple it seems to just stop, it’s actually much more complicated than that.

There are dozens of ways to deal with and prevent procrastination, but listing everything out would just incite more procrastination. Long lists are distracting, but short and pointed ones work just right. Try to follow these three major tips to get yourself to stop procrastinating:

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1. Master Your Time

A deadline that seems far away will come up faster than you think, especially if you decide to fill your free time before then with things other than work. Time flies whenever you’re having fun, and then it’s gone when you need it for work. To prevent this, you must treat every second like it counts.

Make a schedule for your tasks. Even if you’re managing your own work and only doing things you want to, you still need to set and follow deadlines. Give a solid, unshakeable outline of working hours for everything you need to do, and see how much time you can space out between all of them to keep your day flowing normally.

Taking out the trash won’t take an hour, but working on a paper or doing an exercise routine takes more than 15 minutes. Give more time to the more important, necessary tasks and less to the fast, easy, and thoughtless ones. Once you get used to a schedule, make sure you keep it. Over time, things that took too long will take less time as you find the most efficient ways to do them, your schedule will become more efficient, and you’ll find more time in the day that you previously wasted.

2. Break Up Your Work

Look at the big picture for your assignment. It can be daunting. Even simple projects can expand in scope until an hour-long task feels like an all-day ordeal. One reason people procrastinate is to avoid the stress of facing major challenges. They see a mountain, and instead of starting their climb, they limber up, rest up, relax, retreat, and do anything that avoids the pain.

Break your work down into pieces and organize it from simplest to hardest. You can also prioritize it from the least rewarding to the most enjoyable tasks. Then, check to make sure the order you’ve picked is compatible with the order the job requires. You obviously can’t live in a house before you build it, but some parts are more fun than others.

By breaking down your task, you can spread it out in a longer schedule and deal with it in parts. Each completed task gives a stronger sense of accomplishment than inching forward on a massive project. It’s better to do 100 things 100% of the way than to face the drudgery of being stuck at 45% done and wondering how much longer the other 55% will take.

3. Reward Yourself

Whether you work independently or not, recognition for your hard work is always motivating. A paycheck, a good grade, a pat on the back, or just the pride of seeing hard work pay off are all the regular motivators that people look forward to at the end of a project. But then they look at the project and wonder when, if ever, it will be their turn.

Discipline is critical in managing motivation. If no one else is offering rewards—like a manager might—you need to create them for yourself. And you can’t just take the carrot off the stick, or it defeats the whole point of a reward. That’s why you must withhold those things from yourself until the job is done.

This is especially true for self-managing workers. Home or remote schooling, self-employment, entrepreneurship—there is always the temptation to take a reward before the work is done. It’s so easy. It’s right there in reach. It can be anything you like, but you can’t do it now. Save the fun stuff for free time outside of a schedule and for celebrating major milestones. The end of your deadline should conclude with a celebration, not a panicked rush to actually finish everything you no longer have the time to do because your celebration happened when the schedule started.

It’s Time to Stop Wasting Time

If you’re reading about how to stop procrastinating, chances are, you’re already doing it. You’re still doing it now, even as you finish reading this article. So now that it’s over, you should actually take the advice and put it into practice. There’s only one secret to getting things done, and that’s to start doing it. No amount of psychology can make you a better worker if you never actually start working.

There’s always something else to do, something new to experience, some new thought that needs to be heard, but don’t let it distract you from what is important. Don’t get in your own way. In the end, there’s only one person holding you back, and that’s you. So get out of your way and get things done!