“I will just do it later”- That is a phrase everybody uses at least once a week.
Procrastination is the result of us trying to avoid a task or a thing that we have psychological discomfort
associated with.
For example – You have an essay to work on for school or university, but you end up doing something
completely different, something you are more confident with. You procrastinate, you go on your phone and
you do things that are apparently “productive”, but are not actually studying. We know what we have to be
doing, we just cannot get ourselves to do it.
Most of the time we try to force ourselves to work, because we are trying to fight procrastination and because
of the fear of not getting anything done. We make excuses and procrastinate when there is a risk that we
might fail at something.
A lot of people think procrastination is a time management issue, they mislabel procrastination as laziness or
a lack of motivation. But it is surprisingly none of these things, so do not worry, you are not lazy!
It is an emotional management problem. We are avoiding the shame that comes with acknowledging our
imperfections, which means, that procrastination usually has less to do with avoiding the thing and more to
do with avoiding the emotion that is associated with the thing.
Tips
1. Try to keep yourself organized by using and creating to-do lists (You should also check out Frederic’s blog “Journaling to improve mental health” – He advises you about different types of journaling and gives you a lot of inspiration)
2. Try to concentrate on just one thing a day
3. Reward yourself with something fun to do, after you finished a task that has negative emotions tied to it
4. Try to answer the question – Why am I putting this thing or task off? What am I worried about?
5. Set a time limit on the things you would rather like to do and try to not exceed the limit
The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique was designed by Francesco Cirillo and helps you to organize and to focus on your
tasks. It is one of the best productivity tasks I ever tried, and it really helped me to get rid of my
procrastination issues.
All you have to do is to set a timer for 25 minutes and to just commit to one task. If you will get distracted,
you have to reset the timer. After the 25 minutes of hard work, you reward yourself with a 5-15 minutes
break and some free time.
Try to repeat this routine and trust me, it works!
Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
There is this thing called revenge bedtime procrastination, which is also a type of procrastination. In this
case, people refuse to go to sleep at night, because they do not have much control over their daytime life. The
only time of the day they have control over is the nighttime. The people living with this kind of
procrastination stay up late, even if they are tired, because they do not want their free time to end, they want
to maintain a sense of personal freedom. The delayed sleep obviously harms your health and may leave you
exhausted the next day.
If you are someone who struggles with procrastination, you are not alone! Procrastination is normal and just
expresses our emotions – most of the time fear. The tips are just what has been helpful for me, but I hope it is
helpful for you too, so feel free to try them!