You’ve got a frightening deadline tomorrow. Yet you’re checking out memes on social media, chatting with friends, commenting on forums instead doing what you should do. You are completely aware about what you are doing right now will not get anything done but you are still doing it.
That sounds like a perfect Saturday! But when the deadline arrived you were completely frustrated and probably ended up with unsatisfied work.
A study found out that 88% of students procrastinate on some work for at least one hour every day.
Procrastination is the major reason why people can’t seem to get work done or meet deadlines. Instead of doing your project or assignment, you engage in miscellaneous activities like checking email, social media, watching videos, surfing blogs and forums. Procrastination go off when you know you should be working, but you don’t feel like doing anything. So, the guilt of not doing anything will haunt you at the end.
Plus, procrastination is usually the misery of every student’s existence as you misuse your free time and put off important tasks you should be doing until it is too late. When it then indeed too late, you start to panic and forced to pull a stress-induced all-nighter.
You shouldn’t let procrastination take over your life. Here are three essential steps to crush procrastination and start meeting deadlines without stress and panic.
Break Your Task into Little Achievable Bits
One of the reasons why students procrastinate is because they find the work too overwhelming. Therefore, to avoid procrastinating, it would be a better idea to break your task into little parts. After breaking the tasks, you need to focus on one part of the task at a time. This helps you to avoid unnecessary free times that will probably lead you into an ineffective day. If you still find yourself procrastinating after breaking the task, then you need to break it down even further. Take small breaks when you are working on a task. Treat yourself!
The goal is to get each part of the task to be as simple as possible, up to the point you start to think “gee, this is actually simple let me just do it now.” Additionally, with each part of the task, there should be a corresponding deadline. Having just one deadline for the whole task is a great way to invite procrastination.
Therefore, you need to create an overall timeline with specific deadlines for each small task. This will help you finish each task by a certain date and allow you to finish the entire project before the deadline.
Reward your Results
Humans are basically pleasure-seeking species, with the driving force to do what needs to be done to get a reward they desire. Therefore, you can use your natural drive to get rewarded to stop procrastination. To do this, you need to write down the parts of the task you are expected to do and assign a reward to the completion of each part.
For each task, you need to describe a reward that is meaningful to you. No matter how small the reward is, it could be “I will watch an episode of a show when I finish the task” or “if I finish the project before the deadline, I will treat myself to an expensive dinner.” You get motivated to complete your task if there is something at stake.
The point is that we should not make our life a living prison. We should enjoy ourselves. After all , that is why we do what we do.
Tell Your Goals to Someone else
When you only hold yourself accountable to achieving your goals, it will be easy for you to forget them or put them off. So, if you really want to achieve your goal, it would be better to tell a friend or a family member. By doing this, you now have someone else holding you responsible for your goals. Also, it makes you kind of guilty if you do not reach into that goal. So, you can use it to your advantage.
With this, you will not be able to back out or slough it off, as they are bound to ask you about your status on those goals whenever they see you. Other than having someone to remind you of your goals, you also have someone to celebrate your victories. Whether it is turning in a paper early or preparing for a test, the person will be there to support you.
Conclusion
Procrastination is not the worst thing that can happen to you. But it is not the best thing either! We can easily drag ourselves away from procrastinating by taking simple actions. It will take some time to master them and move your way into being completely productive. You just need to start today and be consistence with the actions you take.
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