How to Deal With Procrastination

Pro­cras­ti­na­tion is a well known phe­nom­e­non for most of us, defined as hes­i­tat­ing on doing a task until the last minute. This arti­cle will in short offer some ideas that could hope­fully help us avoid pro­cras­ti­na­tion, either be in our per­sonal life, stu­dent life or as a professional.

1. Clar­ity and control

Before fire work­ers start to extin­guish a fire in a burn­ing build­ing they first try to col­lect all the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion about the build­ing like stairs, exits etc. That way they will find out how they can deal with the fire in the best pos­si­ble way. To avoid pro­cras­ti­nat­ing, we need to have full con­trol and clar­ity of how many tasks we are deal­ing with at any given moment of our life, its impor­tance and how we can exe­cute them successfully.

2. Pro­cras­ti­nat­ing is easy

Even if we have a detailed list and data of all our duties it’s still fairly easy to avoid doing it. How many times have we thought “we still have two more weeks” to fin­ish the assign­ment or the work project? How many times have we thought the clas­si­cal “tomor­row”? For some rea­sons we tend to think we will have more time next week, next month or in a not too dis­tant time in the future.

3. We are always busy

I know how sim­ple it’s to think next week or month, but the hon­est fact is – we are always busy. You will also be busy next week and next month. That’s the nat­ural way of life. There is always some­thing that occu­pies us in some way or other. That’s why it’s essen­tial to inte­grate our tasks and duties into our day as first as last.

4. Dif­fi­cult first — easy later

You have surely dis­cov­ered this– a task is most of the time tough in its ini­tial phase, when you are about to get started, but once you get going and gets through that first phase it sud­denly becomes pain­less and you might even won­der what made you wait so long. The more daunt­ing the task is — the more you feel anx­ious about it and that often results in a fur­ther delay. The best way out is to just start with it and you will get rid of that some­what hap­less feeling.

5. Dis­ci­pline and time management

A good plan and a good abil­ity to fol­low the plan is the most lethal weapon to defeat pro­cras­ti­na­tion. Don’t make it com­pli­cated, just a sim­ple monthly to-do list. Write down all impor­tant task you want to com­plete, dead­lines, amount of time required on each task and etc. Ana­lyze your sit­u­a­tion from time to time and eval­u­ate your progress. Make some adjust­ment to your plan if nec­es­sary. If you keep doing this each month, be sure you will be avoid­ing procrastination.

The devel­oper of this web­site, Abdirisak Jib­ril is a stu­dent of engi­neer­ing and enjoys offer­ing valu­able tips on top­ics related to career, per­sonal devel­op­ment, study-life and much more.

Abdirisak Jibril

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