Online Store5 Tips for Preventing Procrastination
Here are some tips to help you fight procrastination.. and WIN!
1. SET GOALS ” Setting goals which has a strong reason or incentive can go a long way in helping you fight against procrastination. The pressure of achieving the goal and meeting the schedule that youve set will help crush any feelings of procrastination that you may have. To fight procrastination, you have got to make taking action immediately a must, and setting goals and schedules is a great way to make that happen.
2. PUT YOURSELF IN A STRONG STATE - When youre lazing on the couch, youll never be able to beat procrastination. If youre watching TV, surfing the Internet, lying on the bed etc, the same thing will happen. Why? Cause youre in relax mode. Youve got to get yourself in the right state first!
Take the example of sportsmen and women. Before a game starts, these athletes will first put themselves in the right state and frame of mind. They focus and go through a kind of ritual to bring out their best state so that they can perform at 100% during the game. They dont check emails or read the newspaper right before a game.
To fight procrastination, you need to do what the sprinters do. Before you even think of starting, give yourself a few moments to focus, centre yourself, give encouragement and put yourself in the right state of mind. Doing that will weaken the procrastination bug considerably.
3. REMOVE ALL DISTRACTIONS - Yeah thats right. Remove as many likely distractions as possible. Turn off your cell phone, sign out from MSN messenger, turn off the TV, hide the TV remote, put the newspapers and magazines in another room, turn off the music, go as far away from the bed as possible, put the snacks back in the kitchen etc. Dont allow the slightest opportunity for anything to be able to distract you. When there are no distractions, the odds of you procrastinating are much lower.
4. ORGANIZE ” Organize all your tasks and action items. When you have things organized, the work will seem and feel more manageable. If you just know that you have a bunch of stuff to do, it can feel very overwhelming and this will only make you procrastinate. When you have clarity on what exactly needs to be done, it is less intimidating and makes it so much easier to get started.
5. START WITH SMALL TASKS ” Start by doing the smaller and easier tasks first. This helps prevent procrastination because firstly, it will be less intimidating than bigger tasks, where you wont be so put off by the thought of starting work. Secondly, by completing a series of small easy tasks, you will get a much needed momentum which can be very useful when you move towards doing bigger tasks.
Apart from that, you will feel good psychologically about completing those small tasks. The positive feeling of achievement will be carried forward and it puts you in a good state to work on the following tasks.
