How to Avoid Procrastination to Succeed in Life

We all have done it and we all do it many times in our personal & professional lives. We try to push things to tomorrow. We always try to buy time and try to delay things.

It is a well-known fact and all know that procrastination is the mother of all demons and always stop you from achieving all that you desire.

Let’s see How to Avoid Procrastination to Succeed in Life

Slot it for NOW

Today personal or professional deadlines are true markers for success and doing things at the last moment is a bad habit and may spoil your name and reputation. We simply continue on our path without thinking but, in a world of accountability one has to become responsible for the work assigned.

It is natural that, we feel being forced to do a task immediately and to satisfy our ego and to show our importance, we push it. Believe me it is a habit and ingrained in our subconscious mind, difficult to overcome

When you have been assigned and official task or when your clients or customers’ requests you to for some, don’t just think first do it!

This will make you look well-organized and a great feeling that the job is done, completed well within the deadline, will be a great relief and gratitude.

Don’t you think it will prove your efficiency to your clients and customers or to your superiors when appraisals approach? It will give you a wonderful feeling and motivation to do more.

Try taking SMALL STEPS

Majority of time, when a task is assigned, we do not have a clue, where to start or how to start and in this frame of mind we delay it. If it’s intimidating we push it. But, later we try to apply ourselves and accomplish it. So, it is better to start with small steps so that a beginning is established. This really helps!!

Let’s take an example, you are preparing for a presentation and you look at the topic and convince yourself, I cannot do it. That the first step to procrastination, self-belief is essential which can be substantiated by research on the presentation topic. People have a habit of blackout, just remove it. Now if you go to manuals, books or internet and jot down the points and start putting on slides, you will land up with material. First step is avoided. Now just revisit and relate it closely with the topic, you get a self-edited copy. Brush up and practice once, you are ready with the presentation with comfortable time in hand.

These are the small steps:

1. Understand the topic
2. Do research or ask people, who have done it before
3. Plan a solution
4. Check out the feedback’s
5. Believe in it
6. Execute it

Show you are..always ready

If you work by taking small steps your mind will become accustomed to simplify any task, even the complex ones. It will make you ready to take up new challenge and accept things easily. Always believe that you can do it and make it an individual. Very important on accomplishment celebrate and acknowledge your achievement. If work on these styles you will be surprised that you were putting off things unnecessarily. Why was I procrastinating!!

Pan it out and envision it

We know that planning is vital and when we know we are procrastinating, it becomes all the more important because in effect it your vision.

So, creating a realistic and achievable plan is necessary for self-motivation. Once you create that plan create a vision to achieve it.

Let’s go back to the example above; we go back to the presentation. Your vision may look something like this.

“I am so grateful that I have completed all the research I need for presentation. I am finding the information easily using the internet and manuals. People who have done presentations are offering me advice that allows me to create an exciting presentation that I resonate with. As I prepare slides or speak, the words come to me effortlessly… .”

It is said that creating a vision and focusing on it daily, it is universal that things, people, processes will begin to occur in your life that will allow you to attract that vision and effectively implement your plan.

Reason it, always

Every individual is different and have vivid reasons to delay things. Have you ever made an attempt to find why you are procrastinating? Why you have been ‘dragging your feet’ on something for a very long time?

Is it because of some intuition, which gives you a signal that doing this may harm you? Yes, this could be a valid reason based on your previous experience.

For example – “Once, I have seen an advertisement of a new car, impressed with the features and convinced about the price and efficiency, I went to the dealer, the salesman was also convincing. But, despite the positives, I pushed the buying decision. Why you know, in past, I have purchased a household product and it failed miserably. May be my intuition was telling me to wait, let others buy it, have practical reviews and then decide”. Valid reason to procrastination and this is what usually happen when you are assigned with new task which you have never tried before.

Make it a point to reason it, always. You will find a way out to avoid procrastination. My decision to delay buying of that car was baseless; I was weak to make that decision and depended on other people to buy first.

If you find out the reason, which invariably we do not bother to, you will avoid procrastinating.

Create a Support Base

People usually put of things because they feel that they are too complex and difficult to handle alone. Because they need assistance. Be extremely honest with yourself, all you have to do is ask for help. There so many people and resources out there that can help you to carry out your job.

My observations

In so many years, I have observed that startup business success depend on degree of procrastination. As an entrepreneur, initially you have limited resources and you exhaust those in the process of procrastination, timing is important. Similarly, as an employee in fast paced world, if I procrastinate and someone else does it, he is been given chance, ahead me.

If observe all successful people, they procrastinate less. They may use their resources well to delegate and get things done. But, they decide to do it in time.

Many studies have shown that one of the big reasons procrastination has increased over the last few decades is because of advancements in technology.

Smart phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, smart watches, smart TVs, etc. could be to blame for the lack of focus on productive tasks. We could attribute distraction as one of the factor for procrastination.

Positive Procrastination

Some people actually enjoy procrastination and enjoy the “thrill” of waiting until the last minute to do something. They enjoy the heart pounding and the challenge of doing the task right before the deadline. But, in most cases, this is not why people procrastinate.

Conclusion: How to Avoid Procrastination to Succeed in Life

Procrastinating is a sign of being lazy and less productive. It also indicates that you are not prepared to change and give less importance to time. It’s a habit which needs dustbin!!

So, think differently about a task in a more positive manner than you are used to by thinking of the benefits of completing it instead of the drawbacks. Try and understand which kind of procrastination you suffer from so you can pinpoint how to deal with it.

I hope I tried to arrive at some solution on How to Avoid Procrastination to Succeed in Life

Next time if you are watching a football game and wife asks you for a help or boss calls don’t just put it off, you know you have facility to record the game and watch later. I rest decision to you….Introspect do write why you Procrastinate in comment section. It will be an interesting topic of discussion and we can have interesting solutions to the worst problem, humans face daily.

Also Read…How to Manage Time Effectively