Do you often procrastinate? Are you tired of this habit and want to learn how to stop procrastinating? If so, this is for you.
This post discusses everything you need to know about overcoming procrastination.
So ensure you read this article to the end.
Why Do You Procrastinate – How to Stop Procrastinating
The first step to solving any problem is understanding it.
This is why understanding why you procrastinate is essential in stopping procrastination.
Usually, knowing the reason behind your action is one of the best ways to avoid that action.
Therefore, below are some causes of procrastination.
Depression
If you are depressed, you most likely have a deep feeling of hopelessness.
Nothing would interest you, not even the things you otherwise love doing.
You will also feel tired and unmotivated to do anything.
This would cause you to keep putting off doing something that you need to do.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
If you have this mental disorder, you may have difficulty doing things at the right time.
People with ADHD typically have problems concentrating on something.
This affects almost every aspect of their lives and makes it difficult for them to start anything.
Lack of Self-Confidence
People who aren’t confident in themselves may doubt everything about themselves.
Low self-esteem makes it extremely difficult for people to believe in themselves.
It makes them doubt their skills and abilities.
If this is the case with you, you may procrastinate even when you don’t want to.
This is because you feel like you do not have what it takes to start and complete the task adequately.
Perfectionism – How to Stop Procrastinating
If you are a perfectionist, then you most likely procrastinate as well.
Perfectionism makes you believe everything has to be perfect before doing anything.
You will put off doing anything until you are sure the timing is perfect.
Due to your (often ridiculously) high standards, you end up failing to do things at the right time.
If you don’t think you have everything sorted out, you would rather not do what you need to do.
But the more you try to make everything perfect, the more you procrastinate.
Perfectionism is just as bad as procrastination.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder – How to Stop Procrastinating
If you suffer from OCD, chances are you are also a chronic perfectionist.
And as you’ve seen, perfectionism is one of the leading causes of procrastination.
OCD also makes people indecisive.
So, even if you work out your perfectionism, you still have to overcome your indecisiveness.
Fortunately, you can still do something about it.
You can seek professional help and ensure you stick by their advice.
Avoidance
Another common reason people procrastinate is avoidance.
People like this prefer to do less stressful and enjoyable things rather than face the hard tasks head-on.
If avoidance is the reason you procrastinate.
You tend to ignore things and issues until they loom right in front of you.
Also, you typically can’t just bring yourself to face problems and hard tasks.
Therefore, you keep pushing them away until you can’t avoid them anymore.
Signs That You Procrastinate – How to Stop Procrastinating
You cannot fix a problem if you do not recognize the problem.
Even as you read this article on how to stop procrastinating, you may still be in denial as to whether you procrastinate or not.
Well, that doubt has to be removed so that you can properly channel your effort toward overcoming your procrastination habit.
Therefore, we will discuss some of the most obvious signs of procrastination.
You Always Wait for the Dying Minute Before You Get Anything Done
This is the most obvious sign of a procrastination problem.
There’s no way you won’t realize this trait in yourself if you tend to procrastinate a lot.
Most times, you find yourself wasting your time doing irrelevant things when you should be working on something.
But once the deadline for the project is looming, you suddenly develop superhuman energy and work overtime to meet up with it.
Your Workplace and Home Are Always Disorganized
Procrastination always makes you put off doing almost everything, including tidying up your environment.
So, if your workplace and home are always disorganized, you are most likely a procrastinator.
Apart from having a disorganized environment, procrastinators are also usually sloppy people.
This is because they do not know how to make plans and stick to them.
They usually do not regard schedules and do things at the last minute.
When you do not do things when you should, you will be in a hurry to get them done later on, and doing things in a hurry often causes disorganization and confusion.
If you have noticed this sign, you most likely procrastinate a lot.
You Are Always Late – How to Stop Procrastinating
Procrastinators are never on time for anything.
If you constantly find yourself late for events, appointments, meetings, etc., you are likely a procrastinator.
Sometimes, you may even go out of your way to ensure you show up early.
But because you are a procrastinator by habit, you may still put off doing important preparatory things in favour of other irrelevant things.
You still arrive late at the event at the end of the day.
Does this sound all too familiar?
If it does, then you procrastinate a lot.
You Think More Than You Do – How to Stop Procrastinating
Do you spend all your time wrapped up in your thoughts?
Are you more interested in making plans than carrying them out?
Do you always think of the future and spend valuable time daydreaming about it?
If your answer to any or all of these questions is yes, you are likely a procrastinator.
Yes, thinking and making plans is one of the key ingredients of success.
But what good are these plans if you do not implement them?
Procrastination makes you think up several great plans and situations but never lets you work towards achieving them.
You Leave Things for Later
This is another obvious indication that you are a procrastinator.
If you leave something that you can do now for later, you’ve procrastinated it.
Most procrastinators always say the same thing “I will do it tomorrow”, or a similar variant of this phrase.
However, nothing hinders them from doing what they have to do today.
Procrastinating makes you leave things for the future, and then in the future, you start to wish you had done it when you should have.
You may procrastinate again in the future (if there’s no deadline), and just like that, the cycle of procrastination is born.
You Do Not Complete Things You Start, and You Fail to Attain Your Goals
If you are in the habit of starting something and leaving it uncompleted, you may be a procrastinator.
Likewise, if you often set goals and never attain them, you may procrastinate.
You never do the things that will help you reach your plans or complete your projects.
For instance, you want to become a better business owner.
You know you need to improve your skills across all aspects of your business.
You know you need to read books, attend seminars and webinars, get closer to those that are successful in your industry, take courses, and so on.
But you never do these things.
Instead, you waste your time on the fun; watching TV, aimlessly using the internet, playing games, and so on.
You Are Full of Excuses – How to Stop Procrastinating
People who procrastinate often have several excuses for not meeting their goals or failing to do things when they should have.
Worse still, these excuses are more than half the time flimsy.
You Spend All Your Time on Social Media – How to Stop Procrastinating
Most of the world’s population uses social media platforms almost daily.
This is our new normal, and it isn’t bad.
However, when you spend most of your time on social media, you are most likely a procrastinator.
Social media is one of the major reasons people tend to procrastinate these days.
So, you may have already noticed this trait in yourself.
Being a social media freak is not something you can hide.
If you are one, there’s no way you won’t have noticed it.
Tips on How to Stop Procrastinating
Now that you are sure whether or not you procrastinate, it is time to learn how to stop this habit.
Remember, there are several reasons people procrastinate, and you most likely have been able to identify yours at this point.
If so, make sure you keep the reason you procrastinate at the back of your mind as you read through this section of the article.
This is because some of the shared tips are more effective for some specific procrastination reasons.
1. Stop Complicating Things
If you procrastinate because you are a perfectionist, this tip should help you stop procrastination and perfectionism to an extent.
One of the reasons perfectionists do not do things at the right time is that they tend to overcomplicate everything.
They do this because, in their minds, nothing is as simple as it seems.
So, they spend valuable time overanalyzing.
You need to learn how to stop making things look more complicated than they are.
You can do this by first realizing when you start to make things appear more complex than they are.
Once you realize what you are doing, call yourself to order by reminding yourself of the negative effects of thinking this way.
Accept that you can’t do things perfectly despite your hard work.
2. Break Your Tasks into Little Parts
Your subconscious may be telling you that the task you need to complete is too difficult, so you avoid doing it.
However, sometimes, the task may not be as difficult as you have made yourself believe.
You can stop procrastinating by breaking your tasks into small parts.
This will make you stop seeing them as too big and difficult to complete.
If you can’t stop procrastinating even after breaking the task, you may need to break it down again.
Break up your task until each step becomes a simple task you can complete without getting distracted.
When working on one step, try not to think of the remaining steps.
If you keep thinking of the other steps, the whole point of breaking the task into steps will be defeated.
So, when working on one step, focus fully on it.
Once you are done with one step, start the next one and the next one until you eventually finish everything.
3. Have Specific Deadlines – How to Stop Procrastinating
Having a deadline is great, but it may not be enough to stop you from procrastinating.
In fact, it makes you procrastinate more.
So, instead of having just one deadline, have several deadlines for each step you take to complete your goal.
This will make you work towards completing every step on or before the deadline you have set for it.
Do not overlook any of the deadlines.
Make sure you stick to all of them and meet up with them.
This will create a sense of urgency that will stop you from procrastinating.
You can also have an overall deadline for completing the full task.
When you meet your specific deadlines, you will likely complete the task on or before the main deadline.
4. Daily Plans – How to Stop Procrastinating
You may procrastinate because you do not have specific plans for your day.
If this is the case with you, then you need to develop the habit of making daily plans.
You probably already know what you intend to do the next day.
Therefore, you can write your plans for the next day, every night.
Right before you go to bed, use a few minutes to write down your tasks for the next day.
When writing your daily plans, be sure to prioritize.
The most important things should come first before the less important ones.
This way, you get to do the important things when you are still full of energy.
5. Take Away Things That Distract You – How to Stop Procrastinating
Everyone has things that tend to distract them from concentrating on essential things.
If you find yourself procrastinating and not doing the things you originally set out to do, you are most likely distracted by something.
In this case, you need to identify your distraction and eliminate it.
A lot of people usually get distracted by their phones, checking their emails, aimlessly using the internet, or spending time on social media.
So, it might help keep your phone out of sight and reach as you work.
You should also consider getting a productivity tool for your computer.
You can use a productivity tool to restrict your website access for a given period.
This way, you can avoid websites that often distract you from your work while you use your computer.
Also, consider timing yourself.
Fix a given time to work; it could be 30 mins, 1 hour, 2 hours, or any amount of time you decide on based on your attention span and what you are working on.
During this time, pour all your attention into the task without considering distractions.
Once the set time is complete, you can take a break and do anything you want.
Your break should be for some minutes, after which you should return to work.
6. Stop Making Excuses
To stop procrastinating, you have to avoid making silly excuses.
When you keep making excuses for yourself, you create a procrastination cycle.
“Oh, I could not reach my goal because I have been too busy”, “I am too tired to get this done”, and “it’s too difficult; I do not think I have what it takes to get it done”.
All these are excuses you tell yourself to avoid doing things right now.
But once you start making these excuses, you feed your procrastination habit.
Soon, you will become comfortable putting things off and just making excuses for not doing them.
This is why you need to develop a new mindset.
Rather than thinking you can go scot-free when you put off doing something, make yourself realize that that action would have consequences.
Develop an “I have to get this done” mentality.
When you start to procrastinate, remind yourself that you cannot afford not to complete the job.
7. Improve Your Self-Confidence
If you procrastinate because you do not believe in yourself, the simple solution is building self-confidence.
Learn to shun the voices in your head that keep telling you you aren’t good enough.
Refuse to let your self-sabotaging thoughts get the better of you.
Instead of thinking, “I can’t do it”, start thinking “, I can do it”.
Learn to believe in yourself, your skills, and your abilities.
If you can do this, then with time, you will be able to prevent self-doubt from putting you off doing things.
Conclusion on How to Stop Procrastinating
Procrastination is one bad habit that can delay you on your path to success.
But, like with any other bad habit, you can’t just let go of it in the blink of an eye.
You may have a hard time letting go completely, but you have to stay determined.
If you have a relapse, try not to be too hard on yourself.
Instead, retrace your step and continue trying to let go of the habit; eventually, you will stop procrastinating.
