Delaying anything to a future time. Counting on our future selves to pull us to success; and when that plan doesn’t work. Who suffers other than us? People that shouldn’t. Here are some ways to beat procrastination:
- If something is going to take 5 minutes, just do it. Be a Nike commercial!
- Schedule your projects for no more than 1 hour at a time. If it’s a two-hour project and you must get it done today, try to schedule an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, the intention is to allow your brain to work on something else before you come back to the two-hour project.
- If you are resisting the project, spending several hours avoiding doing it is a good way to waste precious time, instead dive into the project at least 10 minutes. Set a timer so you don’t waste any time checking to see if the timer has gone off yet. When the timer does go off, celebrate! Check your tasks and choose something you want to do or set the timer for 5 minutes and do something not related to work at all (i.e. look at Calvin and Hobbes comic strips).
- Use peer pressure in a positive way. Check out Focusmate. Pick one thing you must complete and schedule a free session with Focusmate. The pressure of having something scheduled with someone else is usually enough incentive to get you to sit down at your computer on time. And like my piano teacher says, sitting down is the most difficult part.
- Focus on 2-5 things a day that you really need to get done. Looking at a list of 25 items would overwhelm everyone. Keep the rest of the 15 for tomorrow’s menu to select from.
- Consider using an electronic project management system…the project is your life. There are many to choose from Healthline has an article written by Amanda Doyle and Zia Sherrell called, “The 11 Best ADHD Apps for 2022”. I personally just started using Asana and I love it!
When procrastination happens, remember this, the only way out is through; or perhaps Winston Churchill said it best, “If you are going through hell, keep going.”
