Procrastination: Mastering the Inevitable
Hello, my name is Jon and I’m a procrastinator.
That is to say, I was a procrastinator. As in past tense. Meaning it exists no more. It’s gone now. Eradicated. Annihilated. Kaput. It is an ex-flaw.
Mostly.
As with many other unfortunate personal shortcomings, procrastination doesn’t truly go away entirely, if I’m honest. It’s a flaw that feels as though it has been nailed to its perch, remaining ever-ready to rear up and strike again at the most inopportune time. Any person who suffers the unpleasantries of endlessly delaying the inevitable can never truly and permanently declare success over their shameful little problem without looking back over their shoulder, wondering if it will eventually make a repeat appearance when they don’t have the time or the inclination to fight it off.
Yet, procrastinators have no choice but to continually fight it. If we ignore it, it will prevail. If we pretend that it doesn’t exist, it will come back stronger than ever and overwhelm us. It’s a beast that must be tamed. Fortunately, there are a handful of things that you can do to keep the monster at bay.
I should note that I’m no expert in this area, so my advice is based only on my personal experience that I’ve collected over the years. Granted, there’s a 100% chance that what I’ve learned was built up from a surplus of compounded sources, none of which I can recall the specifics, thereby allowing me to claim the advice as having originated from my own self. That may be inauthentic, but there it is.
Because advice like this is easier to consume, and possibly ignore, when it’s presented as a list, here are 6.5 things that may help you in overcoming procrastination.
1: You are not a terrible person
Or, at least, you’re not terrible when it comes to your proclivity for putting things off. Way back when I was still in high school, I would wait until the night before a test to begin studying, having done little work leading up to the day. The grades I received as a result were less than impressive. I would be extremely angry at myself for weeks afterward. Why was I so stupid? What was wrong with me? Why was I so lazy? That type of thinking did nothing to put me on track to determine why I procrastinated and, consequently, how I could correct it.
Becoming angry with yourself is never helpful in trying to make improvements. You’re more likely to get results by using positive techniques rather than torturing yourself for the things that you didn’t do right in the past.
In practice, that means leaving the old habits behind and taking a fresh approach. Rather than worry about what happened the last nine million times you did the wrong thing, focus on using the correct strategy right now. It’s necessary to learn from mistakes, but becoming saturated in defeat is a pointless exercise.
2: You don’t have to be perfect
When I procrastinate it’s usually born of a deep-seated need to do everything correctly without allowing for the slightest chance of a mistake. That may seem admirable at first glance, but it’s actually a mechanism that can set you up for failure. You’re likely to delay the work leading up to that potential imperfection if you become too concerned with the possibility of failure.
The result of doing that is, of course, that you won’t have time to get the work done and, in reality, you’ll be that much more likely to have plenty of mistakes find their way into your process. But procrastinators tend to be illogical in many respects, this being one of the more obvious ones.
Rather than worry about what may go wrong, you should do something, anything, to begin the work. Allow the work to be gestural and rough. Sketch the outline and get something on paper, then refine it over time. You’re more likely to begin working sooner if you can get past the idea of having to create perfection right out of the gate.
3: Break it into pieces
This is one of the more obvious suggestions. If you look at the entire project, be it designing a website or overhauling an internal combustion engine, as one amorphous blob, you won’t have a clear sense of the process that needs to take place between “Start” and “Finish”. You have a greater chance of success if you segment the work into a series of steps that can be accomplished in succession.
4: Reward yourself
For a procrastinator, work of almost any kind can become arduous in remarkably short order. Even if you’re making progress along the way, it can still be such an unpleasant process that the sense of doom you feel will remain at the forefront of your mind, making any subsequent efforts become marred by even more procrastination.
Now that you’ve broken the work out into pieces, it’s helpful to reward yourself for each accomplishment. Rewards should be composed of anything that you find enjoyable that isn’t likely to take up too much of your time. So, for example, if you complete one hour of work by writing your first draft of a proposal, you might spend five minutes reading Facebook status updates. Or you could sit quietly while thinking about a world much like our own, but made entirely of orange yarn. Whatever you prefer.
Keep in mind that it’s important to not let that reward time get out of hand. Once you’ve had a few minutes of pleasant diversion, it’s time to get back to the project.
5: Make a list
To-do lists are extremely helpful in staying organized. What may have otherwise seemed like an impending avalanche of work can be compartmentalized into something that’s much easier to absorb.
The list can be an overarching one that categorizes all of your action items, but you can also separate each project, breaking them down into much smaller tasks. You’ll feel a genuine sense of accomplishment when scratching off items you’ve completed. It makes the act of completing your work all the more concrete and real.
It’s also helpful to rewrite your lists on a daily basis, so you can see what carried over from the previous day(s). Doing so will prompt you to deal with tasks that might otherwise float along for days and weeks longer than they should.
6: Don’t leave the manure for the very end of the day
Procrastinators have a hard time getting things started, so I don’t recommend dealing with the most unpleasant task first since doing so may put you in that cycle of evasion. Instead, start with something just to get moving and to get working. Once you have one or two accomplishments under your belt, dig in to the nasty stuff and get it over with. Chances are, the stuff you want to do least won’t be nearly as awful as you might have feared, which will result in a motivational boost to carry you through the end of your day. What you definitely don’t want to do is leave the garbage until quitting time. That’s when you’re going to be tired and stressed from having put it off for so long that you’ll either do a lackluster job, or you’ll put it off even longer, making the task seem that much more laborious and overwhelming when you’re left to deal with it tomorrow.
6.5: Forget about it
Productivity is a lot like exercise. Some of your biggest gains happen during the rest period in between your work-outs. You need to shut things down and tune out to recharge yourself. If you’re truly productive and gain control over your procrastinating habits, you’ll be that much more capable of not worrying about the work during your off-hours since you’ll either have already finished it, or you’ll have a solid plan in place to get it done. The result is less stress and anxiety because you won’t be fretting about what you’ve been avoiding.
If you take the time to use the tips here, I can absolutely guarantee that your life will be better and that you’ll be a happier person as a result.*
*I can guarantee neither of these things.
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