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9 Practical Ways to Stop Procrastinating

Don’t let procrastination take over your life. Below are steps on how to stop procrastinating.

1. Change Your Environment

Different environments have different impacts on our productivity. Look at your work desk and your room. Do they make you want to work, or do they make you want to snuggle and sleep? If it’s the latter, you should look into changing your workspace.

One thing to note is that an environment that makes us feel inspired before may lose its effect after some time. If that’s the case, then it’s time to change things around. For instance, if you can’t work in public places because of the constant movement and noise, then find a quiet place to sit down and focus.

2. Create a Detailed Timeline with Specific Deadlines

Break down your project, then create an overall timeline with specific deadlines for each small task. This way, you know you must finish each task by a certain date. Your timelines must be robust, too – i.e., if you don’t finish this by today, it will jeopardize everything else you have planned after that. This way, it creates the urgency to act.

3. Eliminate Your Procrastination Pit-Stops

If you are procrastinating a little too much, maybe that’s because you make it easy to procrastinate.

Identify your browser bookmarks that take up a lot of your time and shift them into a separate folder that is less accessible. Disable the automatic notification option in your email client. Get rid of the distractions around you.

4. Re-Clarify Your Goals

If you have been procrastinating for an extended period, it might reflect a misalignment between what you want and what you are currently doing. Oftentimes, we outgrow our goals as we discover more about ourselves, but we don’t change our goals to reflect that.

Get away from your work (a short vacation will be good, else just a weekend break or staycation will do too) and take some time to regroup yourself. What exactly do you want to achieve? What should you do to get there? What are the steps to take? Does your current work align with that? If not, what can you do about it?

5. Stop Overcomplicating Things

Are you waiting for a perfect time to do this? Maybe now is not the best time because of X, Y, and Z reasons? Ditch that thought because there’s never a perfect time. If you keep waiting for one, you are never going to accomplish anything. Perfectionism is one of the biggest reasons for procrastination.

6. Reward Yourself

Some people say that rewards aren’t good motivation. Don’t believe them. Offering rewards to yourself is a good hack if you just can’t stop procrastinating.

Treat yourself and have some well-deserved “me time.” It doesn’t have to be extravagant and can be as simple as a sweet treat or a movie.

7. Hang out with People Who Inspire You to Take Action

The people we are with influence our behaviors. Identify the people, friends, or colleagues who trigger you – most likely the go-getters and hard workers – and hang out with them more often. Soon you will inculcate their drive and spirit too.

8. Get a Motivation Buddy

Having a companion makes the whole process much more fun. Ideally, your buddy should be someone who has his/her own set of goals. Both of you will hold each other accountable for your goals and plans. While it’s not necessary for both of you to have the same goals, it’ll be even better if that’s the case, so you can learn from each other.

9. Seek out Someone Who Has Already Achieved the Outcome

What is it you want to accomplish here, and who are the people who have accomplished this already? Go seek them out and connect with them. Seeing living proof that your goals are very well achievable if you take action is one of the best triggers for action.