We’ve covered this subject in more detail (focusing on freelancers) some time ago. In this post however I wanted to share my personal experience with procrastinating.
Things I found difficult as well as techniques and habits I’ve implemented to get rid of reduce procrastination.
If you have followed my personal quest to master productivity you know how I’ve managed to reduce the 8 hour grind to a pleasant 2 hour work session (usually in the state of flow). I still think it’s possible to be even more productive. But let’s get back on track and discuss procrastination in more detail.
There are tons of techniques, systems and Apps to help you stop procrastinating. In this post, I’m only going to share things which helped me personally. As with all things productivity, your millage may (and most likely will) vary.
The trick is to try various things, then choose and stick with these which work best for you.
Main (for me) Causes of Procrastination
YouTube – although I don’t personally use social media sites like FB or Twitter. I do watch YouTube, sometimes quite a lot.
I’ll do it later – as I got more efficient and managed to squeeze 8 hour workday into 2 hours. I would often delay starting on whatever project I was supposed to work.
I would tell myself “it can wait”, “I have plenty of time”.
Things which helped me stop procrastinating.
I think I can attribute the success to the following 3 things.
I’ve implemented a couple more but going by tge Pareto Principle, these would be the 20 in the 80/20.
1 – Just start
Sometimes all you need to break the procrastination cycle is to simply start working on whatever project you were supposed to be working. Simple but not easy. Worked for me tho.
2 – Eat that frog or start with the most difficult task.
I’m not sure about you, but I had a tendency to wait with the most difficult task till the very end.
Now, I do the complete opposite and always start with the most difficult task first. There is a very satisfying feeling of accomplishment once your most difficult task for the day is ticked off your to-do list. It also helps tremendously by building up momentum to complete remaining tasks. They all seem to be very easy now, piece of cake.
3 – Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro technique is nothing new to me and I’ve been using it on and off for ages. However, since I’ve started using it more and more often. I now use it for 90% of my working time. I’ve noticed that it helped me reduce procrastination quite significantly.
So there you have it, a list if things which were making me procrastinate and solution which helped me get rid of procrastination.
Further reading:
Eat that frog. – by Brian Tracy https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95887.Eat_That_Frog_