4 ways to fight procrastination
How often do you tell yourself you’re lazy and will do it later? Every day if not several times a day, right? It’s not always for major tasks. It’s often for little things like emptying the dishwasher, dusting, or mailing that letter that’s been lying around for a while. But that’s enough! You can do all of these things without it weighing down your day-to-day life, quite the opposite.
1 minute’s rule
Some time ago, I discovered the “1 minute rule”. This rule is very simple. If you think of a task that can be done in 1 minute, do it right away. Don’t wait, since it’s not time consuming. This rule applies to more things than you might think at first. In one minute you can water that plant that looks bad, rinse that glass that’s lying around, launch a laundry, put some moisturizer on your face, or send a message to a loved one you want to check in on. We’re not going to lie, you’ve got plenty of minutes in between activities that are more important to you. The goal is not to be tedious, but rather to do those little things that we are reluctant to do. Because if you don’t do them as you go along, you’ll have to do everything at once. And that’s much more annoying, we all agree on that. Take a moment before you leave for work, right after your dinner or before you go to bed to do those little things that would lighten your load.
To take it a step further, I also try to apply this rule to tasks that take less than 5 minutes. They are less easy to fit into your daily routine, but they too avoid piling up everything. This is the case for small household actions or even professional assignments. Many messages can be handled in less than 5 minutes.
Try, when you think you have to do this or that, to take charge and do it right away. You’ll see, just tell yourself it doesn’t take long and do it right away. Don’t pile it on too much.
Procrastination is the little demon that whispers in your ear that you’re too lazy to do it. Don’t listen to it.
Make lists
You all know about lists. But do you use them? Personally, I’m a fan of them to take some of the mental load off my shoulders. By making lists for shopping, lists for books I’d like to read, for recipes I’d like to try out and especially for things I need to do, I free up space to think about other things and not have to continually make the effort to not forget anything. If I’m in doubt, I just open the Notes app on my phone and I find the info.
Strangely enough, to-do lists have a pretty strong power to get us moving. What better way to know exactly what you have to do and get organized? By listing the things you have to do, you will realize that many of them are not so tedious and time consuming.
When you have a moment to deal with your to-do list, 2 strategies clash:
- do all the quick little tasks to eliminate as many as possible and then move on to the more time-consuming ones
- do the longest tasks first to get rid of them and then finish with the smallest ones so that you can chain them together and have the impression that it is easy
It’s up to you to adapt according to your character and the items you have on your list. Do they have a different priority level? If so, make sure you deal with them quickly.
The pomodoro method
You know those tomato-shaped kitchen timers? This method is inspired by them, pomodoro meaning tomato in Italian. The first time I read about this method and tried it, I thought there was no logical reason for it to work. Against all expectations, the result blew me away. Let me explain.
The method consists in doing 3 cycles of 20 minutes focus/5 minutes break. At the end of these 3 cycles, you take a bigger break. During these 20 minutes, you turn off your notifications and put aside your phone. The goal is to have no distractions, whether it’s your phone sending you notifications, or you being tempted to look at it and go to apps. This applies to the phone but also to tabs on your computer that are not related to what you have to do right now.
What I love about this method, and what amazed me, is that having this timer has actually boosted my productivity. My brain conditions itself very well to this pace and even when I’m tempted to look at my phone, I see the timer on it, which makes me put it down to dive back into my tasks. The reward comes at the end of the 20 minutes and it’s very rare that something important enough happens that you absolutely have to see it within 20 minutes. Keep a vibrator or ringtone for calls if you want but don’t look at other notifications.
Delegate
If you really feel overwhelmed or can’t bear to do this or that task to the point of constant procrastination, use the right services. Do you procrastinate when it comes to running big errands or going to the market? Get local products delivered. Can’t get your paperwork done? Get an accountant or a help service. Some work assignments that you are not motivated to do? Discuss it with your manager to see if you have options. Delegating costs more but gives you the peace of mind to focus on tasks that add more value to you.
Don’t let that little voice in your head tell you that you are lazy. In most cases, you’ll be much more satisfied by getting these tasks done right away. When you have things to do, it’s very rare that they disappear on their own without you having done anything. So you might as well tackle them as soon as possible to free your mind.
