7 Great Ways to Fight Procrastination

Procrastination is the arch enemy of personal productivity. It doesn’t really matter what else you get right, if procrastination has you watching television when you should be working, your productivity levels aren’t going anywhere good.

The first thing to accept about procrastination is that it can never be completely avoided. Some tasks are just so torturous that you are going to figure out imaginative excuses to put them off.

The good news however is that the amount of time that you spend procrastinating can be greatly reduced by taking a few simple steps. Here are seven highly effective ways to fight procrastination.

Get Organised

An excellent excuse to put off doing a task is that you cannot find the required tools. Because of this, an organised workplace is a valuable weapon in the fight against procrastination. You don’t need to become obsessive about it but if you typically spend half your day looking for your pen, a change is obviously very much needed.

Break Tasks into Parts

If you’re dreading completing a particular task, an easy way to fight procrastination is to simply break the task down into smaller, more manageable pieces. Once you’ve done so, take on one small piece at a time. Provided you can do one small piece every hour, by the end of your day, even the most torturous of tasks will finally be completed.

Don’t be a Perfectionist

The difficulty of any task can be significantly magnified if you attempt to complete it perfectly. And in reality, there are very few tasks in which perfection is actually required. Before starting the task in question, ask yourself exactly what needs to be achieved. Don’t waste time on minor details that are largely unimportant.

Bribe Yourself

When dealing with a particularly awful task, a little bit of bribery can go a long way. For example, if you get a particular task completed, perhaps you can purchase yourself something shiny at the end of the week. Obviously you can’t use bribery every week but sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.

Remove Distractions

The more distractions in your workplace, the more likely you are to procrastinate. It can therefore make a lot of sense to try to keep your workplace as free of distractions as possible. If you like to surf the net at work, try to make doing so impossible. If you tend to chat with co workers, tell everyone that you don’t want to be disturbed during certain hours.

Motivate Yourself

The more motivated you are, the less of a problem you’re going to have with procrastination. Before starting work each day, remind yourself why it’s important for you to be productive. Perhaps you have an important deadline approaching. Or perhaps, you’re desperately trying to get a raise.

Is it Just Procrastination?

Finally, if you think that you procrastinate more than most people, it’s worth considering whether or not there are any underlying issues at play. Self doubt and fear of success can sometimes cause abnormal levels of procrastination. It can often get to the point where the person in question is subconsciously sabotaging themselves. And to make things worse, most people suffering from such issues are completely unaware of them.

Helen Sanders is one of the best and most effective corporate trainers in Australia. She has worked with many leading companies to help them increase the productivity of their employees. She believes that using Krown Hypnosis has helped her evolve, both as a trainer as well as a person.

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