You’ve probably been there, a big due date one week away and you just can’t seem to get started or focus on the task.
You’re procrastinating and it’s something that nearly everyone does.
One of the underlying causes of procrastination is the brain’s desire for short-term pleasure boosts, but you can take advantage of your brain’s desire for those boosts to overcome procrastination.
One of the most common causes of procrastination is the feeling that a big task is insurmountable.
Instead of focusing on the entirety of your task, break a project up into smaller steps and focus on accomplishing these steps one at a time.
Breakup a 30 page research report into five or ten sub-tasks and much of the burden will be lifted.
Then after you complete a sub-task, give yourself a reward. Go for a walk, meditate, take a shot and nap.
This will help you refocus too, just make sure to stick to your schedule as it’s easy to be too stingy or too generous with your own breaks.
Another frequent cause of procrastination is lack of motivation; you don’t want to do it now and decide that you’ll have more motivation later or insists that you work best under pressure.
But cramming in everything right before it’s due produces subpar work and unnecessary anxiety.
If you set deadlines for your self and spread the work out over the course of the time you have, you will easily be able to tell whether you’re on track to complete your project.
Excessive perfectionism causes procrastination too.
You might think you won’t be able to do a good enough job or feel under prepared before you start, so you never do. Instead of shooting for perfect, try to attain satisfactory.
Aim to achieve results that satisfy your requirements and nothing more.
Not everything you produce has to be immaculate and you could always iterate on your work later.
Ultimately though, procrastination is something you have to practice working through.
Everyone procrastinates in different ways, so figure out what keeps you from being productive and take steps towards overcoming it.
