7 strategies to help you get rid of procrastination
I strongly suspect that you are pulling time so as not to undertake any important matter, even at the moment, by reading this article. It turns out some kind of paradox, but it does not matter. It is even good. Here you will learn simple strategies that you will be able to apply in the future to effectively combat procrastination.
Procrastination can occur for a variety of reasons:
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Nevertheless, these seven strategies will help you solve the problem, regardless of what lies at its root. They will push you to the goal, slightly changing your way of thinking and approach to business.
Read the details on each of the strategies below, select the one that seems right for you, and try it out.
Here is the entire list:
Let's go in order.
Over the past seven months, this approach has allowed me to dramatically increase my own productivity, get rid of many bad habits and get useful.
Keep in mind: it may take months to bring the project to the end or to fix some kind of habit, but you should not look so far into the future. Of course, it is necessary to plan, but we tend to overload ourselves with similar thoughts and eventually lose our motivation.
So if you set a goal to lose weight in two months, think only about today. Your task is to try your best to eat properly for the next 24 hours. And that's all. No need to think about what will happen next week or even tomorrow. When the day comes to an end, then it will be possible to think about the priorities for the next day.
Go to the second paragraph.
Visualization has an interesting property: it stimulates us to action and can give motivation to take a step towards the goal.
What would be your ideal daily routine and working environment?
Answer the following questions:
Just imagining yourself how your day should ideally take shape, you awaken motivation in yourself - it is a very powerful tool.
“Greatness is made up of little things that are done well. Day after day, training after training, assignment after assignment, day after day ”- Ray Lewis
So, you have defined a time frame for 24 hours and have drawn a picture of the perfect day. The next step is to get started.
Determine which task is most important to achieve the goal, and take a small step towards accomplishing it. Nothing significant, no sudden jumps. Take this as a habit formation - not volume, but constancy is important here.
Get started today: choose one small task for 15 minutes and try to do it as best you can. The next day, add a few more minutes and refine what you did. Keep up the good work until you reach the optimal number of working hours per day. Which is determined in its ideal order, remember?
And then just learn, adapt and act.
Often we lack motivation, just to get started. Even if we are talking about some 15 minutes and the task is the simplest, we don’t care how much we’re trying to avoid it.
At such times, promise yourself that you will work only two minutes. And proceed immediately. If you do not have time to come to your senses, you are already in a state of flux, and the thought of reviewing the whole season of the Friends in one sitting, as it did not happen.
Repeat the procedure until you learn to deal with procrastination.
The famous comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said that he had a large wall calendar in a prominent place, on which all the days of the year are on one sheet. And next to it is a red marker. “If on some day I manage to write a given amount of text, I put a big red cross in the appropriate cell,” he explained.
“After a few days, it’s a chain. If you continue in the same spirit, it will become longer and longer every day. You will be pleased to look at this chain, especially when last a few weeks. The only thing that is required of you now is not to interrupt this chain. Do not interrupt the chain! "
It is estimated that his fortune now stands at 820 million dollars. It says something about something.
This method really works, and it is also a rather amusing process, which over time becomes only more interesting.
There is such a passage in George Orwell’s novel “1984”: members of the party subject Winston (the main character) to torture, trying to break him. While he is being beaten, he constantly repeats the following to himself:
This passage made me think.
Usually, when we try to instill in ourselves some good habit, we have a tendency to prostrastinate. We postpone the desired action.
And what if we apply this feature to undesirable actions?
I decided to conduct an experiment. Choose one habit and focus on it for 24 hours. If there is a temptation to break it, I will postpone this impulse - until tomorrow.
As a habit, I chose a healthy diet. I went shopping and felt that I wanted sweets. But when I saw the ice cream, I said to myself (through the drooling of saliva):
“Buy it tomorrow. Now take some vegetables. ”
And he took it. It was difficult, but the thought that tomorrow ice cream was waiting for me was enough to put up with that moment.
Waking up the next morning, I continued the process of habit formation according to the described scheme. He focused on healthy eating within one day, and no more. When I remembered ice cream, I said to myself the same thing as for the first time: “Eat it tomorrow.”
After 3-4 days of this regime it became easier. My body gradually underwent detoxification from sugar, and I no longer had any desire or need for sweets.
Since then, I have been using this method all the time - procrastinating bad habits. It works without fail.
“Real life will not always be perfect and will not always develop in the way we want, but occasionally paying attention to the positive moments, we will be able not only to survive, but also to overcome the difficulties” - Sarah Ban Brenda
Positive reinforcement needs to be secured as quickly as possible - this is a necessary condition for maintaining motivation. Consider it as a confirmation that you are on the right track.
I will give my experience as an example.
My article “ A plan in 5 steps that helped me get a raise and plus 40% to my salary ” gathered only 436 views. I went to friends and asked everyone if it was well written or worthless. I spent more than a week on this article. And for more than two weeks I couldn’t force myself to write - my hands were so low.
But the following articles brought me more positive feedback. With his help, I was able to maintain motivation until the very day when the article “ 13 things that should be abandoned in order to achieve success ” was published.
She received more than 11 million views. I have never received such a response in my life, and never in my life have I had such a powerful stimulus. Now I have only one goal - to maintain this level.
But at the same time it is clear that you will see results only after some time, this is natural. And yet it can create false impressions: after all, what you don’t notice can be noticeable to others.
That is why it is important to tell others - family, friends, colleagues, partners - that you have set yourself this or that goal. This will not only inspire you with a sense of responsibility (after all, they will control you at every meeting), but also give them the opportunity to notice the changes caused by your efforts.
If you do not receive feedback, ask questions yourself to make sure you are on the right track.
You will achieve results, even if you test only one of the methods on your chosen goal. However, you can also combine these strategies - each one will produce a result, and in the end you will get a cumulative effect.
Always remember one main rule:
It is better to set aside at least five minutes to reach the goal than to miss three days. Small tasks, small steps give great results.
Later, depending on the progress and circumstances, you can evaluate the success of applying these methods and adjust something in them.
Procrastination can occur for a variety of reasons:
')
- Fear of success;
- Fear of failure;
- Fear of condemnation;
- Fear of the unknown;
- Perfectionism and excessive attention to detail;
- Over planning;
- Unrealistic expectations;
- Low self-esteem;
- Lack of goals and guidelines.
Nevertheless, these seven strategies will help you solve the problem, regardless of what lies at its root. They will push you to the goal, slightly changing your way of thinking and approach to business.
Read the details on each of the strategies below, select the one that seems right for you, and try it out.
Here is the entire list:
- Think within 24 hours
- Imagine the perfect schedule and working conditions
- Break the task into small fragments (and gradually make them larger)
- Adhere to the rule of two minutes ("The action you are trying to put into the habit, should take no more than two minutes")
- Use the Seinfeld method
- Procrastinate procrastination (delay unwanted action until tomorrow)
- Reward yourself as soon as possible (positive reinforcement)
Let's go in order.
1. Think within 24 hours
“Where your focus is there is your energy” - Tony Roobins
Over the past seven months, this approach has allowed me to dramatically increase my own productivity, get rid of many bad habits and get useful.
Keep in mind: it may take months to bring the project to the end or to fix some kind of habit, but you should not look so far into the future. Of course, it is necessary to plan, but we tend to overload ourselves with similar thoughts and eventually lose our motivation.
So if you set a goal to lose weight in two months, think only about today. Your task is to try your best to eat properly for the next 24 hours. And that's all. No need to think about what will happen next week or even tomorrow. When the day comes to an end, then it will be possible to think about the priorities for the next day.
Go to the second paragraph.
2. Imagine the perfect schedule and working conditions
“To attract something into your life, imagine that it is already there” - Richard Bach
Visualization has an interesting property: it stimulates us to action and can give motivation to take a step towards the goal.
What would be your ideal daily routine and working environment?
Answer the following questions:
- When do you wake up? And further, what do you do immediately after waking up?
- What is your main goal and what should you do in a day to get closer to it? What does your workspace look like?
- Do you fall into a state of flow? How many hours a day would you like to spend at work?
- What are your hobbies? Reading, dancing, fencing (I know, an unusual example)?
- What do you do before you go to bed? Do you have any rituals?
- And finally, what do you feel?
Just imagining yourself how your day should ideally take shape, you awaken motivation in yourself - it is a very powerful tool.
3. Break the task into small fragments.
“Greatness is made up of little things that are done well. Day after day, training after training, assignment after assignment, day after day ”- Ray Lewis
So, you have defined a time frame for 24 hours and have drawn a picture of the perfect day. The next step is to get started.
Determine which task is most important to achieve the goal, and take a small step towards accomplishing it. Nothing significant, no sudden jumps. Take this as a habit formation - not volume, but constancy is important here.
Get started today: choose one small task for 15 minutes and try to do it as best you can. The next day, add a few more minutes and refine what you did. Keep up the good work until you reach the optimal number of working hours per day. Which is determined in its ideal order, remember?
And then just learn, adapt and act.
4. Apply two minutes rule
Often we lack motivation, just to get started. Even if we are talking about some 15 minutes and the task is the simplest, we don’t care how much we’re trying to avoid it.
At such times, promise yourself that you will work only two minutes. And proceed immediately. If you do not have time to come to your senses, you are already in a state of flux, and the thought of reviewing the whole season of the Friends in one sitting, as it did not happen.
Repeat the procedure until you learn to deal with procrastination.
5. Use the Seinfeld method
The famous comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said that he had a large wall calendar in a prominent place, on which all the days of the year are on one sheet. And next to it is a red marker. “If on some day I manage to write a given amount of text, I put a big red cross in the appropriate cell,” he explained.
“After a few days, it’s a chain. If you continue in the same spirit, it will become longer and longer every day. You will be pleased to look at this chain, especially when last a few weeks. The only thing that is required of you now is not to interrupt this chain. Do not interrupt the chain! "
It is estimated that his fortune now stands at 820 million dollars. It says something about something.
This method really works, and it is also a rather amusing process, which over time becomes only more interesting.
6. Procrastinate procrastination (delay undesirable action until tomorrow)
There is such a passage in George Orwell’s novel “1984”: members of the party subject Winston (the main character) to torture, trying to break him. While he is being beaten, he constantly repeats the following to himself:
“I confess, but not immediately. I will hold on until the pain becomes unbearable. Three more hits, two more hits, and I will tell you everything they need. ”
This passage made me think.
Usually, when we try to instill in ourselves some good habit, we have a tendency to prostrastinate. We postpone the desired action.
And what if we apply this feature to undesirable actions?
I decided to conduct an experiment. Choose one habit and focus on it for 24 hours. If there is a temptation to break it, I will postpone this impulse - until tomorrow.
As a habit, I chose a healthy diet. I went shopping and felt that I wanted sweets. But when I saw the ice cream, I said to myself (through the drooling of saliva):
“Buy it tomorrow. Now take some vegetables. ”
And he took it. It was difficult, but the thought that tomorrow ice cream was waiting for me was enough to put up with that moment.
Waking up the next morning, I continued the process of habit formation according to the described scheme. He focused on healthy eating within one day, and no more. When I remembered ice cream, I said to myself the same thing as for the first time: “Eat it tomorrow.”
After 3-4 days of this regime it became easier. My body gradually underwent detoxification from sugar, and I no longer had any desire or need for sweets.
Since then, I have been using this method all the time - procrastinating bad habits. It works without fail.
7. Reward yourself as soon as possible (positive reinforcement)
“Real life will not always be perfect and will not always develop in the way we want, but occasionally paying attention to the positive moments, we will be able not only to survive, but also to overcome the difficulties” - Sarah Ban Brenda
Positive reinforcement needs to be secured as quickly as possible - this is a necessary condition for maintaining motivation. Consider it as a confirmation that you are on the right track.
I will give my experience as an example.
My article “ A plan in 5 steps that helped me get a raise and plus 40% to my salary ” gathered only 436 views. I went to friends and asked everyone if it was well written or worthless. I spent more than a week on this article. And for more than two weeks I couldn’t force myself to write - my hands were so low.
But the following articles brought me more positive feedback. With his help, I was able to maintain motivation until the very day when the article “ 13 things that should be abandoned in order to achieve success ” was published.
She received more than 11 million views. I have never received such a response in my life, and never in my life have I had such a powerful stimulus. Now I have only one goal - to maintain this level.
But at the same time it is clear that you will see results only after some time, this is natural. And yet it can create false impressions: after all, what you don’t notice can be noticeable to others.
That is why it is important to tell others - family, friends, colleagues, partners - that you have set yourself this or that goal. This will not only inspire you with a sense of responsibility (after all, they will control you at every meeting), but also give them the opportunity to notice the changes caused by your efforts.
If you do not receive feedback, ask questions yourself to make sure you are on the right track.
Finally
You will achieve results, even if you test only one of the methods on your chosen goal. However, you can also combine these strategies - each one will produce a result, and in the end you will get a cumulative effect.
Always remember one main rule:
Give more importance to the regular repetition of the action, rather than the amount of work done.
It is better to set aside at least five minutes to reach the goal than to miss three days. Small tasks, small steps give great results.
Later, depending on the progress and circumstances, you can evaluate the success of applying these methods and adjust something in them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/323766/
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