When you postpone tasks that you should be carrying out right now, procrastination occurs.
If you find yourself putting off essential events every now and then, you are bound to face certain challenges that could disrupt your career or life in general.
Procrastination tends to impact negatively on time management, leading to delayed completion of certain activities. As such, there exists a temporal gap between your actual and your intended behaviour.
How to beat procrastination for good:
1. The basic step to beat procrastination is to recognize that you are actually procrastinating. Being honest with yourself lets you identify the cause from where you can proceed to tackle the matter.
Activities such as reading emails several times, filling your day with low priority tasks from your to do list or waiting for the right time or right mood to begin a task are some indicators to help you realize that you are procrastinating.
2. You can then figure out the reason as to why you are doing that.
It is important to understand the cause of the procrastination so that you may effectively tackle it. In some cases, the occurrence of procrastination may depend on you or on the task being either disorganized or rather unpleasant.
Once you identify the root cause, you should be able to prioritize in an effort to avert the situation.
3. The next move involves setting anti-procrastination strategies.
Since procrastination may be a deeply developed habit, it may not be possible to overcome it immediately. The strategies are approaches to help you beat the vice.
The following tips will help you make significant steps:
Always reward yourself when you successfully complete a certain task.
Ask a friend or someone else to check up on you – for example close friends. Peer pressure will actually help you on this.
Recognize the unwanted repercussions of not completing the job and then determine the cost value of your time.
These will help you overcome certain forms of procrastination.
Otherwise you should embrace the use of a to do list and the use of an importance matrix to prioritize your activities.
Proper planning and setting of goals also forms an essential step to beating procrastination effectively.
1. The basic step to beat procrastination is to recognize that you are actually procrastinating. Being honest with yourself lets you identify the cause from where you can proceed to tackle the matter.
