How to stop procrastinating: A complete guide about procrastination
By: Sohalia Attari
Tags: Motivation, Getting Things Done, Stop Procrastinating, Procrastination, Procrastination Causes

Have you ever wondered why we keep putting off things at the last moment? We prefer to spend time on unnecessary stuff instead of doing important work that has to be done. However, we spend our precious time on scrolling social media accounts. Even though we just open them to check, but we keep on scrolling. And then what? We lose the track of time. We decide to start a healthy balanced diet, but we keep on snacking even we are full. When we have something to be done in the first place, we keep postponing until the deadline.

All the things sound familiar, right? This is what procrastination is. Procrastination is avoiding unpleasant tasks that are more important and doing easier and enjoyable things.

How can you know that you are procrastinating?

If you do not know that you are doing procrastination, how would you deal with it? The following are the thing a procrastinator does.



• Keep doing less priority work despite doing what has to be done first.



• Keep postponing things expecting for the right time to start.



• Do not do things and wait for being perfect on it.



• Wait for a good mood to start.

Why do we procrastinate?

There are plenty of reasons for procrastination. Let’s discuss them.

• Fear of failure: Most of the procrastinators are afraid of failure. They think that they will not be able to succeed, and they keep putting it off.

• Exhaustion: When we get tired working all day long. Then we are more likely to do it because we don’t have enough energy to do.

• Vague goals: If we do not have concrete goals to do, we keep thinking about what to do. We cannot decide which makes us confused. How can someone do without a proper decision?

• Perfectionism: Perfectionism leads to procrastination too. People usually wait to be perfect which leads them not to do work at all. They become afraid of making mistakes.

• Fear of negative feedback: A lot of people criticize others in their work which caused them to set back from their work. They become afraid of being evaluated. They think too much about what will people think.

• Distractibility: There are a lot of distractions that keep us away from work like social media, television, video games etc.

• Lack of motivation: Motivation helps us to start the task. Lacking it causes us to procrastinate.

• The core reason of procrastination:

We all spend hours playing video games and browsing social media easily. But when it comes to studying or doing work, we all procrastinate. It takes a lot of efforts for us to do even though these are more productive and reward us in the future. You must want to know why one activity is easy while other requires effort?



A molecule named dopamine does this. Dopamine makes us desire things. And this desire makes us to get up and do stuff. Dopamine is released by our brain in small quantity. Based on activity, our brain release different amount of dopamine. If dopamine is released in larger quantity, we are more likely to do that stuff and get motivated to do it again and again.



Any activity where we hope there will be an instant reward, the brain releases it. However, when we know there is no immediate reward, the brain will not release. Suppose, we see fast food, and we know that it will make us feel better despite the fact that it is not good for our health. But it releases dopamine. Some examples of high dopamine behaviors include: scrolling through social media websites, playing video games, watching Netflix, eating junk food, etc. We anticipate a immediate reward with these, and we do these stuff more. On the other hand, studying, doing work, or starting a diet does not give us an immediate result. As a result, we don’t get enough motivation to do it, which causes us to procrastinate.



Dopamine doesn’t care about what is good or bad for us. Dopamine just wants it more and more. If you want to know more about dopamine The Molecule of More by Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long is a good book to read.

How to stop procrastinating

It is easy to put off things but you can take small steps to get rid of procrastination and start doing work. These are the tips you need to work on:

Get rid of distractions



It is really important to figure out what are the distractions which cause you to procrastinate. The biggest distraction is the mobile phone. You keep using it even when it is not necessary. You cannot stop yourself from using it. But you can manage your time. Using apps that avoid phone distraction is easy way to avoid distraction. Or it is better to leave mobile phone somewhere away from workplace.

Setting an environment that suits work, helps a lot in stopping procrastination. Set a workplace where you do not sleep, eat, and do other things. Set places in your home for specific purposes. The bed must be for sleeping and do not use a mobile phone and watch television there. Set a specific room or area in the room where you do work and do not do anything else there.

Set deadlines

Often people leave their work on tomorrow and that tomorrow never comes. Setting deadlines really help in getting the work done. If something has to be done at the moment, then do it rather than putting it off on another day. In the start, it will be difficult, but it will help a lot in the future.

Share your goals with someone



Share your plans with your family member or friend who can remind you of your work. This will help in avoiding procrastination. Moreover, when you tell others about your goals, they will ask about it. It will keep you doing because you have to answer them.

Set achievable goals and commit to it



Make your mind as simple as possible about your goals. Having vague goals become a hurdle in starting it. Be clear about it. When you decide it, then commit to it.

Give yourself a reward



Decide a reward after completing a difficult task. Thinking about reward will make it easy to do it. For example, watch a good movie or eat whatever you crave for.

Avoid analysis paralysis

Analysis paralysis is a situation in which an individual or group over analyze and overthink. Thinking too much makes everything difficult to do. Just be clear about what you are up to and make it as simple as possible. Try 2-minute rule by James Clear.

Set a daily plan of action

If you are having problem organizing yourself which is leading you to procrastinate, then a plan of action really helps. It helps in keeping track of all tasks. All you need to do is:

• Set the most important tasks



Figure out what are the important things you need to do



It can be important work or what you wanted to do for a long time but haven’t started yet. Write everything down in which you think you procrastinate.

• Rank those tasks



Create a logical order of what to do. Do the hardest stuff first because you will have more energy in the morning which makes it easier to do. It will make other tasks seem a bit effortless too. Doing the hard task late in the day causes procrastination.

Put those tasks on top of the list which is essential and must be done. Then put less important and so on. When you look at the list, you already know where to start, and where to end. Instead of considering what to do, you already have a list, and you move straight into it. It reduces time consumption and motivates to do.

• Complete the tasks



Make the list a day before and get straight into it. Making a list takes only few minutes, but really helps to stop procrastination. Remember to focus only on one task at a time and when complete, move to other task. And do the rest. Repeat the process daily and fight procrastination.