How To Stop Procrastination

 

You are working in a corporate job and you have been given a task by your client. You and manager begs for a timeline of 15 days. Client has given you the desired timeline and you started working. But soon the time passed and you reached a point where you have only 2 days remaining in your hand and you have literally most of the work pending. You are panicking and wondering where all you time went away. You somehow finished the project in the last two days because your manager was building pressure upon you. But you compromised on the quality and frustrated with yourself. You decided that from the next project you will be punctual from day one. But somehow and strangely enough the same cycle is repeated in the next project as well.

Let me take another example, Mohit is first year engineering student in one of the engineering college. Mohit was committed to get good marks throughout his degree course and will get a good job. Mohit started studying from the beginning of the semester but soon he got involved in the other activities of college and wasted his time. Time flies and his end semester exam arrived. Now, Mohit is studying day and night struggling to pass the exam and cursing himself why he didn't studied all throughout the semester. He anyhow managed to give his exams and after the exam ended, Mohit made a promise to himself in his mind that he will study hard from the next semester. But somehow the next semester happened like the previous one. And Mohit still struggling in the exam nights just for getting passing marks.

Have you observed what is common in both the examples. Its the habit of Procrastination. Both Mohit and the corporate employee took the task, planned for it, started working for it but after a short time got distracted and then finish the task in tight time frame at the last moment. 

What exactly is procrastination

Procrastination is basically the habit of putting off your important tasks till the last moment or beyond the dead line. In this process we get involved in less important and less significant tasks instead of doing the actual work.  It has serious negative effects on your productivity. Procrastination causes frustration. and many times after continuously missed your targets and goals it also creates self doubt. Procrastination is a time killer and it gives you a false sense of working hard. Sometimes you feel like you are working but you are actually not. For example if you wanna start your own blog and all you are doing is scrolling articles and videos about how to start an effective blog then you are doing procrastination. Because you are not actually taking the action in the right direction. If you wanna start your blog then just write your first article on the internet. You could use either any free hosting or buy any popular hosting service. but just right the damn first article. Taking action doesn't mean watching a 'How to video'  or listening a podcast for inspiration. Taking action is just taking action.

Procrastination is not laziness

Many people confuses procrastination with plain laziness but these two are very different. A lazy person does not want to do the task in the first place so he did not start the task. Laziness is simply not doing anything. But in procrastination the person took a task in hand, planned for it, get started it but soon gets distracted in other non useful activities. And then he tries to finish the task near the deadline. So procrastination is much more worse than laziness. Because laziness does not include any effort but procrastination does. Laziness is not that much frustrating and draining like procrastination. 

Why we procrastinate in the first place

Because most of the tasks which are related to our progress and better future are hard, monotonous, non interesting, boring, unpleasant and requires discipline. For example studying for exam, any project in office or improving your physical health. Whereas all the stupid task which we use as a mean to procrastinate are entertaining, instantly gratifying and fun like scrolling social media and watching Netflix. 

How to stop Procrastination

• Always work in blocks of time. Break the large task or project into small small task and fix a target time to finish each. Then take each task one by one and try finishing hem in decided time block. For example you want to finish entire syllabus in a month then fix how many chapter you will finish each day. Then finish your daily target without thinking about the next day or previous day. 
• Either switch off or put on silent your damn phone. Believe it or not, your phone is your biggest productivity killer or also peace killer. Endless scrolling, switching between time wasting apps, notifications after notifications. I swear, limit you phone time if you wanna do anything meaningful in life. These stupid devices are eating our lives without us knowing.
• Fix a place for your work or study. And make sure to keep this place organized. Never waste time in searching for petty things like the pen in your hair and you are searching it on your entire table.
• Always keep in mind of your future self because if you don't work hard or study hard then you will not make and progress and remain where you are today. And believe me its the last thing you want for your future self. So when ever your brain trigger you to involve in some time pass activity than doing actual task, then ask yourself, do you wanna remain a looser throughout your life. If no, then work like hell bro.