Five Tips To Help You Stop Procrastinating.

Procrastination- Something we have all experienced. There have always been moments where we want to finish something, but don’t have the energy to get started on it. We eventually put it off for another day or time, and then realize last minute that we are going to be in some serious trouble if we don’t get it done.

Due to this, we are ignited with feelings of frustration and stress for not completing our responsibilities earlier. However, we have outlined five helpful tips below to help improve your productivity, and ultimately, help you stop procrastinating.

Assess your environment.

Take a moment and assess your environment. How does it make you feel? Are you overwhelmed? Sad? Distressed? Anxious? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these, then you should take a moment and change your environment. We often project emotions that are associated with our surroundings. So, if your room where you typically work is cluttered, that can actually influence you to feel unproductive. And when you feel unproductive, you will become unproductive.

You can easily break this cycle by assessing your environment, and most importantly, being honest with yourself. Being immersed in an inspiring atmosphere can ultimately help you break through the procrastination cycle that you’re in.

Give yourself a deadline.

Yes, setting goals is definitely the first step to getting something done. However, setting goals is not enough. You need to take action. It’s just a must, and there’s no way around it. If you find yourself procrastinating, you are probably saying sentiments to yourself like, “I’ll finish this tomorrow” or “I’ll get to it eventually”.

If you find yourself thinking this way, chances are you won’t get things done in a timely manner. One simple way to help break this cycle is to set a deadline for your goal. Not only will you be paying close attention to the finish line, but you will be motivated to get the task done.

Prioritize what needs to be done.

Usually we focus on what we want to be done, as opposed to what needs to be done. It’s natural to feel that way. We naturally gravitate towards things that we like, and we put our energy into those tasks. However, a downside to that is we neglect other tasks. Unfortunately, those obligations that we are putting off may be more important than the ones we are focusing on. Therefore, it’s important to prioritize what needs to be done over tasks on our roster that we enjoy. Once you adjust your priorities, you will notice that you won’t be procrastinating as much, and most importantly, you will become much more efficient.

Use the pomodoro method.

The pomodoro technique is an incredibly helpful method to implement in your daily rituals. It will significantly increase your ability to be productive, and thus, not procrastinate.

The pomodoro method is simple:

Have a certain task you would like to accomplish.
Set your stopwatch to 25 minutes, and focus on that task for the entire 25 minutes.
When 25 minutes finishes, take a 5 minute break.
After the 5 minute break is finished, repeat step 2 and 3.
After you have completed four 25 minute sessions, you can now reward yourself with a much longer break, ranging from 15 to 30 minutes.

If you need a pomodoro timer, check out the following video to help you neatly organize our pomodoro sessions.

Source: The Timer / Youtube

Get organized.

Being disorganized is a huge reason why you are finding yourself procrastinating. Sometimes we have so much going on that we have no idea where to start. This prevents us from even getting started. However, it’s actually not that intimidating to get organized. Try to invest in an inexpensive agenda, or even use a digital planner, like Google Calendar, to get started. Keeping track of your obligations and important deadlines is a great way to stay organized. Also, visually seeing all your responsibilities neatly organized will allow you to effectively allocate time to what needs to get done, and thus, not procrastinate.