Help! - How do you deal with the dreaded Procrastination?

I’m sat down at my work desk, a careful chosen Spotify playlist aptly named “Studying” is playing in the background. I’ve got my cup of water, my mug of tea and my apple juice - just in case I feel the need for variety with my beverages. My list of articles that need to be written is next to my keyboard, a reminder of everything I need to do. I’m poised to write, everything is ready….but I don’t.

I just don’t feel like it.

I decide to open up Facebook, or Instagram, or how this would be a wonderful time to re-organize my already immaculate email inbox. Something. Anything. Just not actually writing the articles that I’m supposed to. There’s nine of them in total and the more I stare at them the more anxious I get, and the less I feel like writing this.

”Why do I do this to myself? I only had to write 5 articles a few weeks back, now it’s up to 9, and if I keep doing this it’ll be up to 12 and that’s SO MANY articles!”

It’s like playing that game where you’re really tired, and you know you have to fall asleep, but you can’t for the life of you actually get to sleep, so you keep counting down and thinking ‘ok, if I fall asleep now I’ll get maybe 5hrs of sleep’ and this is an endless cycle that never ends - much like this sentence!

I’m not going to say that Procrastination has always been my biggest problem….but it’s kinda always been my biggest problem. When I was in University, I put this off so much that a friend and I even started a blog called The Procrastibakers in which, instead of working on what we were supposed to, we would bake instead. If you’re interested, you can check it out here: https://theprocrastibakers.blogspot.ca. There’s not that many posts….you could say our procrastination got the better of us.

*Side note, I went to check what the exact URL of the blog was and spent the next 15mins procrastinating from writing this by going through each post and re-reading it…

Last Minute Panic

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This used to be my mantra in University, the whole last-minute inspiration/panic. I never handed in an essay late, and usually got decent marks on them, but did I pull countless all-nighters because of it? You betcha!

Over the years I like to believe that I’ve matured and gotten better at organizing my time. I try not to leave things to the very last minute anymore, if anything I’ll aim to be done at least a day or two before. I hate being late or rushed and that makes my anxiety shoot through the roof. I tend to work backwards from deadlines. If something is due at the end of the week, then I’ll try to plan how long it will actually take me to complete the task and split that up into manageable time slots. You know, the more reasonable method of dealing with tasks.

The truth is that my body just can’t handle those crazy, very caffeinated, sleepless power hours anymore. Nor should it, I’m an adult now, I’d like to think I have enough responsibility to complete the tasks I’m being paid to do in proper time. I also don’t want to get fired, so that’s another great incentive right there!

And while I still manage to procrastinate more than I probably should, my responsible side has taken over control. Thank God for grown-up me knowing what we’re doing! The trouble though, tends to arise when I have no deadline, when the project I’m working on is solely for me.

I'll Get to it...Eventually

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I am one of those people that fall into the “Start but never finish a Project” category. Also known as the worst type of person out there. I always go in thinking that I have good intentions and that this is certainly manageable and this time I really. won’t. quit.

Sometimes those things happen. But usually they tend to get the better of me... and of course, the longer I then procrastinate on a project the more overwhelming and daunting it becomes. A great example of this is a scrapbook that I’ve been putting together of the past few years. It started off with a Scrapbook Kit Calendar I got for Christmas one year. It came with different designs, stickers and themed decorations - all I had to do was provide the pictures, easy!

Because of its convenience I managed to keep it up for the whole year, and then went and found the same kit for the following year. The year after that though, I couldn’t find the Calendar Kit anymore and so I decided to purchase backgrounds, stickers and decorations separately. I had everything I needed, I just had to do it. Ha.

Let’s just I’m still planning on catching up, but that scrapbook has been untouched since October 2016…And because it’s a calendar I know exactly when I last looked at it.

The shame is real.

Netflix and...Procrastinate?

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I find that most of my procrastination stems from being easily distracted. My house is a pretty bad one. There’s always something that gets my attention, mostly it involves some chore or another. I’ll go grab a pencil from my bedroom and realize that the bed is unmade, and that I should really do that. Whilst making the bed, I’ll come across a missing sock which will remind me to do laundry. So on and so forth.

But the worst offender is Netflix.

I’ve had a few days off lately and I was super pumped to cross items off my To-Do list. It was going to be great, all this free time, my partner was out of the house so he wouldn’t distract me and I had no deadlines. And then Netflix happened.

That evening I was looking for something fun to watch while eating dinner and I came across The Mindy Project, a show a friend had recommended. This was last week. I am now on Season 5. Why are you like this, self??

The truth is that I don’t think I’ll ever get over my procrastination habits. What I should do instead, is know beforehand that I’ll get distracted and try to combat them as best as possible. Some examples include;

• Maybe not start a new show on Netflix if my there are better things I could be doing with my time. Note to maybe stay away from the ones that have over 100 episodes.

• Tackle one thing at a time and try to see it through. Instead of giving myself 10 tasks to do during a day off, just pick 1 or 2 and make sure they get done by the end of the day.

• Write things down and then cross them off. If there’s one thing I learned about myself is that I get a huge rush of pleasure from seeing a bunch of items crossed off a list.

• Sometimes, admit defeat and just move onto the next thing. The worst is when you really don’t want to do something and instead of moving onto a task you’re more willing to do, you lose precious time not doing anything.

• And finally, get out of the house. As I mentioned before, my house is wonderful, I love it, but it’s the main source of my distraction. Grab your laptop, hit up the nearest coffee shop or library and just get it done. Seeing like minded individuals helps to motivate.

This last one is especially applicable to this post. Remember how I mentioned at the start that I was at my work desk? Yeah, let’s just say that between starting to write this post and actually finishing it, some time went by. Which is why I dragged myself to the nearest Starbucks, sat down and made myself write. Sometimes all you need is the right motivation and running out of excuses.

And if that doesn’t work, I’ve found self-bribery is a wonderful way to get that motivation to show up. I’m looking forward to that passion tea lemonade I’ll be rewarding myself with once I finish writing this.

Catch you around, Steemians!

~Lili

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Photo #1 by Kevin on Unsplash
Photo #2 by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash
Formatted with StackEdit.