Are you somebody that puts everything off till the last minute?

Do you find yourself making up excuses not to do things, even when they really need to be done?

Are you in work right now reading this article instead of getting on with your work?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, the chances are you are a procrastinator. Seeing as though you’re already procrastinating, you may as well finish off reading this article to find out how you can stop doing it in future… Don’t procrastinate

The thing is – by procrastinating you are sabotaging your own success. You are literally choosing to put obstacles in your own path. And why would you want to do that? But it can be a hard habit to break.

It’s estimated 20% of the population in the UK are chronic procrastinators. Imagine how much more we could get done if this wasn’t the case! To understand how to not procrastinate, we need to understand why we do.

For some it’s a fear of failure. They would rather have others think they lack effort than lack ability; especially if they are a perfectionist. Waiting for the perfect moment to start something is unhealthy because the chances are it will never come. Life just doesn’t work that way. You can only ever be sure how you feel right now; you can’t just say “I feel tired now, I’ll probably feel less tired later,” because you don’t know that. This brings me to my next point:

DON’T TAKE NAPS.

Once upon a time I had a huge psychology essay to do in college which was set for the next day. Of course being the procrastinator I was, I had put it off till then. “I’ll do it when I get home,” I said to myself. Of course when I got home I was really tired (aw poor me.) “Great,” I thought “I’ll just have a quick nap and wake up feeling like superman and do my essay, and then maybe go for a jog, and take up yoga, and read War and Peace. It will be great, I will be so productive!” Of course it didn’t work like this.

I woke up feeling 5x worse than when I went to sleep. I didn’t even know what day it was, let alone now miraculously have the energy to do any work.

I got an E for that essay.

DO MAKE A LIST

At the start of your day set out a list of tasks you need to complete. Make sure it is actually accomplishable, and don’t make it ridiculously long. This way, you have no excuse for not doing it apart from you just not wanting to. Put the hardest task first on the list and get that over and done with. Once you’ve done that, the rest of the tasks will seem insignificant in comparison and they’ll be much easier to complete.

DON’T BLOW TASKS OUT OF PROPORTION

Stop over thinking everything you do. Because you are dwelling it, it expands in your mind to become something it’s not. A famous quote is “Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.” It’s so true! So keep this in mind… you’re choosing to make something harder than it is.

DO REWARD YOURSELF

Instead of watching that film now and then doing your work after, do your work now and REWARD yourself after by watching that film. I promise you will feel infinitely better watching it afterwards than you would with something such as an uncompleted report waiting to be done. All your stresses will be done with and you can truly relax!

Procrastinating is really just a state of mind. It’s taking the easy option instead of taking action. Put the above things into practise and you’ll quickly realise how much better off you are, and how much better you feel about yourself.

So stop reading this article and get on with it !

Tom Duffy