Postponing is a common challenge that affects all kinds of people—students and professionals alike—who are trying to accomplish anytime bound tasks. We know you are already familiar with this concept since you are trying to put this text off until a later date somehow.
In its essence, putting off until later what we should be doing now is really just a bad behavior pattern. But is it even fair to label procrastination a bad behavior pattern? After all, some forms of reduced activity might be beneficial. For example, waiting might allow you to better gauge the next step in a line of work. In fact, in some Asian cultures, procrastination is seen as a method of working smart, when you consider that the next thing we do might be crucial.
How to Stop Procrastinating
1. Set Clear, Achievable Goals
Task avoidance has many reasons, but the most common one is feeling overwhelmed by tasks that are either poorly defined or too large to tackle all at once. A really big project that is looming can sometimes feel too heavy and unmanageable, so we can feel tempted to put it off.
However, I find that if I instead think of the same project as if it were, say, 10 different mini-projects with their own individual goals and just as many steps toward accomplishing those goals, I am much less likely to postpone progress toward the final deadline.
Investigations demonstrate that motivation and concentration are bolstered by the act of goal-setting; even the simple act of directing one’s attention toward a desired outcome can prompt a greater effort toward achieving it. When goals are specified, the envisaged result serves as an impetus for action, and this seems particularly true for tasks that are difficult to initiate. Deciding to spend a certain length of time on a task (e.g. 30 minutes) or to produce a certain amount of work (e.g. 300 words) is more energizing than simply deciding to “work on the task” for an unspecified period of time.
This act of giving oneself a directive tends to trigger a “do it now” mindset.
Advice from the Trenches:
Employ instruments such as the Eisenhower Matrix to rank your undertakings according to how pressing and significant they are. Doing this helps to clarify what should be taken on right now as opposed to what can wait.
2. Use Structured Time Management Techniques like the Pomodoro Technique
Shifting to the present, I utilize time management strategies like the Pomodoro Technique, which teaches me to work in focused bursts followed by regular breaks—25 minutes of work, 5 minutes of rest—automatically programming me to alternate between concentration and recuperation. This is a rhythm I’ve learned to love, one that matches my own heartbeat.
The technique’s scientific basis is in cognitive load management and mental fatigue prevention. Concentrated, short work periods make the best of the brain’s attention span. And it is our attention that is constantly being distracted in the usual work environment. The work period is followed by a break to allow the brain to regroup, reduce stress, and consolidate the work material. When the resumed work period starts, the worker is more refreshed and able to pay attention
A tip for real life:
Digital timers or dedicated apps can be used for reliable implementation of Pomodoro cycles. With time, one can shift the balance toward work and increase work intervals to vary the cycle and make it more challenging.
3. Build Self-Efficacy and Confidence
Believing in one’s ability to succeed has an important influence on procrastination. When it comes to academic or task-specific situations, having high self-efficacy seems to mean one is less likely to put things off. And even if that person is put on the spot to perform, a highly self-efficacious individual is likely to come through with flying colors.
Boosting self-efficacy can happen via mastery experiences, which are when people successfully complete small tasks. It can also happen via social modeling, which is when people see and then replicate the successful behaviors of others. Finally, it can happen via what people usually think of as simple but actually can be powerful: positive feedback.
Tip and Hint:
Celebrate little achievements and write down the progress to strengthen the belief in your capabilities. Refrain from being overly self-critical because it diminishes your confidence.
4. Optimize Your Environment to Minimize Distractions
The environment, both physical and digital, has a critical influence on productivity. It can enable it or inhibit it. When I think about what kinds of distractions a person might face in a digital environment, I instantly think of notifications. But of course, there are plenty of other distractions as well. Let’s take a look at some of them as they might pertain to your physical and digital environments.
Investigating workspace organization, limiting distractions, and enhancing devices’ boundaries yields best practices for engaged, focused work. Researchers recommend a designated workspace for readiness and responsiveness and signal attempts to increase the environmental sturdiness of workspace habit cues. The next best thing, they argue, is a clean workspace. To reach for that as a too-far goal fills space on the calendar that could be used for cleaner habit cues.
Practical Tip:
Employ internet site blockades or “Do Not Disturb” settings on your computer during times of intense focus. Ensure that your workspace has the right amount of light, your chair has the right amount of give, and that ambient noise is kept to a minimum.
5. Apply Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies
Cognitive strategies encompass planning, setting goals, and self-monitoring. When people use these strategies, they think in a controlled, algorithmic way, focusing on what needs to be done at the moment to complete a task. Metacognitive strategies involve thinking not just with, but about, one’s cognitive processes. They entail reflecting on how one thinks and does things and then adjusting accordingly.
Tracking the amount of time spent on tasks can make us more aware of how often we put things off. When we track our time, we can see our patterns of procrastination more clearly. It’s also true that looking at the time we’ve procrastinated and the time we’ve actually spent working can be pretty motivating. When we’re putting off a task and we know we’re going to have to account for that time later, it makes us think twice before we sink deeper into a procrastination hole.
Practical Tip:
Keep a journal of productivity to note difficulties, feelings, and successes. Reviewing it with any regularity at all is useful. But if you do it daily, you’ll find it most beneficial, almost like a meditation. It increases the chances that you will register with yourself the obstacles you face, the emotions you feel, and the way you seem to be moving or not moving toward your goals.
6. Cultivate Harmonious Passion and Intrinsic Motivation
A strong antidote to procrastination is doing tasks for their inherent satisfaction: having an intrinsic motivation. Kuhl and Fuhrmann (1998) differentiate between types of passion—harmonious and obsessive. Harmonious passion is when you enjoy and value the activity; you’re like the elite athlete who loves the sport and plays it for the fun and challenge of it. Obsessive passion is different. It’s when you’re driven to do the activity, not for its inherent value, but because you feel compelled to do it. You may even feel that the activity controls you. You’re like the elite athlete who does nothing but train all day, even when he doesn’t want to. Unbalanced passion can lead to procrastination.
Organizing labor with one’s individual values and interests makes people work better. When people see that what they’re doing has a point and a purpose, they’re much less likely to put off doing it, even if it’s tough, and they’re a lot more likely to engage with it wholeheartedly.
Practical Tip:
Find elements of your work that resonate with your values or objectives. Position your job as a means to an end that is personally meaningful.
7. Use Positive Reinforcement and Reward Systems
Progress that is rewarded activates the dopamine system in the brain and builds momentum for productive behavior. Small rewards can be intrinsic (a feeling of accomplishment) or extrinsic (a treat, a moment of relaxation, or a burst of social approval).
Reward systems that work well offer not just immediate pleasure but also kinds of rewards that ensure good performance over the long haul. They are not too tempting, so they don’t distract from the real business at hand. And they are not too insipid, so they don’t fail to motivate.
What passes for the highest practical tip:
Milestones should be set. They should be paired with rewards that mean something. When I accomplish any step toward the completion of my report, I take a walk. I could also enjoy a snack. I might not do these things between each milestone, but I do them enough to know that the simple act of walking can make the difference between my moving ahead and my stalling.
8. Develop Psychological Resilience and Stress Management Skills
Common triggers for procrastination are stress and anxiety. They lead us to put things off because that feels good in the moment. Stress and anxiety are now easier to sidestep than ever, thanks to the many ways we have to distract ourselves. But when we give in to the urge to avoid, we aren’t dealing with the real issues that are making us uncomfortable. And that’s dangerous.
Meditation, mindfulness, progressive relaxation, and cognitive-behavioral strategies improve emotional regulation and sharpen attention.
Helpfully Tip:
Try having 5-10 minutes of mindfulness practice daily. Inhale and exhale deeply and slowly. Focus all of your attention on your breath, in and out. Let it fill your whole body with oxygen. Think of this as a kind of brain reset. You can work better and make better choices when you are less stressed.
9. Build Consistent Routines and Harness Habit Formation
Failure to initiate work is often a matter of bad habit. We can train ourselves to work consistently by developing routines that make initial work a matter of automatic behavior. Most of us can remember times when we were unable to initiate work, and many of us can recall this happening in a pretty regular rhythm. This is human. Habit formation relies on a good deal of repetition and some environmental cues.
Studies in scientific contexts consistently show that when people repeat behaviors in stable situations, those behaviors become habits. Furthermore, we know that when we work in a stable context, it takes less mental energy to initiate a task because we’re not making as many decisions as we would if we were in an unstable context. Since tasks are more likely to be initiated when we’re in a stable context, that makes it more likely that we’ll do some tasks consistently, and thus more likely that some tasks will become habits.
Tip: Practical
Establish daily “start work” rituals. This can be a specific time that you start working or a workspace that you use. When you are starting your day, it is most effective if you are not multitasking at that moment. This can help you to establish a better focusing habit.
10. Use Implementation Intentions to Plan for Obstacles
Implementation intentions are plans structured as “if-then” contingencies. They spell out what you will do when faced with a predictable barrier to your goal. For instance, consider the following plan. It is not an implementation intention. It is just a good piece of advice:
“If you feel distracted, take a 2-minute break and refocus.”
Now let us turn that into an implementation intention.
This technique commits people in advance to responses likely to be productive. It makes them less likely to procrastinate, because they’ve already made a decision and, more to the point, a commitment to act in a certain way. If anything, this method operates mostly on the principle of ensuring that people don’t keep putting off things they really should be doing.
Help Tip:
Anticipate and write down any sticking points you might reach while working on a task. Also, write down what you plan to do to get past those points. If you need to adjust your plans as you go, that is perfectly okay.
Conclusion
Putting things off is a troubled behavior that is influenced by many things in a person’s environment, as well as by their feelings and thoughts. The good news is that there is not just one way to work against putting things off; there are several ways, and those ways can also work together. They might work together like the “three strategies” mentioned above: to clarify, to help the person to see and to understand what they have to do; to assist with the management of time; and to aid in creating the kind of actions and the kind of environments that will lead to actions and to completion.
Using these proven methods reliably can change procrastination from a barrier to a bridge of self-awareness and growth. Working toward productivity is as much about understanding your noggin as it is about managing your minutes.
