How successful people deal with procrastination

Probably all of us are more or less prone to procrastination. Even the most successful people fight it every day. But successful people, unlike everyone else, do it. They do not allow themselves concessions and do not allow procrastination to influence their work. They use clear and effective strategies to break down psychological barriers and maintain high productivity.

The following are eight ways in which successful people counteract procrastination . Most likely, they will seem obvious to many. But someone can bring tangible benefits!

1. Successful people are responsible

One must feel the obligatory nature of this work. If you make a commitment, it helps maintain responsibility. This can be achieved by recording your tasks, planning actions, creating reminders for yourself on the phone and on the calendar.

To maintain their own responsibility, there are other approaches, more creative. You can change the background image of the desktop on the phone or computer so that it resembles that “the work needs to be done”. You can record tasks and goals with a felt-tip pen on a white board or on stickers glued to the monitor. You can open a new tab in the browser that displays what remains to be done among the tasks of the day. For this, Momentum or Limitless services are suitable.

2. They are responsible to others

If you cannot become responsible to yourself, then you can achieve greater success by becoming responsible to other people. We need to tell them what is planned to be done, and discuss the tasks before us. For example, if we decide to go to the gym every day, it would be nice to ask a friend to regularly send text messages such as "Have you been to the gym today?"

Another suggestion is to start documenting your actions. A blog (text or with video files) in which we report on the project we are working on, and on our progress in the implementation of this project, greatly contributes to ensuring that the work goes without delay. By allowing ourselves to be supervised by others, we can help not to lose the fuse.

3. They are “attached to the mast”

Odysseus demanded that his team tie him to the mast, which allowed him to hear the songs of the sirens, but not to rush to them at sea. If our delays are chronic, and we simply cannot resist the temptation of the call of sites such as Facebook and Youtube, then it is time to “attach to the mast.”

There are tools like Rescue Time, Self Control and Focus that temporarily block access to sites like Facebook, allowing you to not be distracted from doing the work. This is a last resort, but quite effective.

Less aggressive tools exist, such as Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator and Distraction Free Youtube. They allow access to Facebook and Youtube, but at the same time block such distracting parts of these sites as news feeds, allowing you to use resources only for business purposes, for example - to manage advertising.

4. They recognize themselves

Self-awareness is a common feature of many successful people. It allows you to correctly understand why procrastination occurs at all.

And after the reasons for this phenomenon become clear, it will be much easier to come up with a plan for how to deal with it. Self-analysis allows you to identify the causes of delays, so you can either solve the problem, or formulate a strategy to deal with it.

To recognize the sources of procrastination is to take a step back and look at some possible causes. Such as boredom, lack of confidence in the project, lack of self-confidence, a feeling of congestion.

As soon as the reason becomes clear, it all comes down to finding a means to eliminate it.

5. They plan ahead

How often do we sit at our desk at the beginning of the day and look for things to do, ending this search by opening news in Reddit or checking email?

If, sitting down at the desktop, we don’t know where to start work, then this leads to the implementation of insignificant tasks (the same mail check), which is the main reason for delays.

Whoever does not have a card runs the risk of getting lost. Before starting work on any project, it is necessary to draw up a plan or list of tasks for its implementation. A good time for this is the evening of the previous day.. At this time, it becomes possible to evaluate everything that was achieved in a day, and then determine what needs to be done tomorrow. Now, when the next working day begins, it is already known exactly what needs to be done and what work has the highest priority.

6. They at least get to work.

When starting a task, be prepared for the fact that it will most likely take more time to complete it than originally intended.

It resembles playing sports. Half the effort is to get yourself to just appear in the gym.

If you tune in to starting a task, you will soon notice that more work is being done. The next time there will be no feeling that you are struggling with a task if you give it just one minute.

It is enough to set the timer for 60 seconds, then sit down and start working. Often there will be a desire to work after the elapsed seconds! This trick allows you to force yourself to engage in tedious and uninteresting tasks.

7. They break down large tasks into smaller ones.

The classic advice for maintaining productivity (which is rarely followed) is as follows.

To cope with a large or even huge task, it needs to be divided into smaller subtasks. Successful people understand that tasks need to be divided into more specific, and more measurable in terms of volume subtasks.

For example, the entry “write a book” may be an inalienable element in the to-do list. Does this entry mean that you need to write an entire book today, or do you need to write only one sentence, which will advance on the path to the global task?

A better approach would be to write a specific number of words each day. Or the allocation of a certain amount of time to search for information.

“Writing 100 words” or “spending 30 minutes to write a book to look for examples of productive leaders” are much more specific tasks, and therefore they are easier to complete. Such tasks often contribute to doing more. In addition, they create feelings of satisfaction and motivation when the next task done is deleted from the to-do list.

8. They are able to refuse

Just because a lot of time was spent on the project does not in itself mean the need to complete it. This is called a "cost trap." It includes players, investors, lovers of procrastination. Sometimes a project is simply not worth it to continue to spend even more time on it, and you need to decide whether it is time to abandon it.

It is required to step back and understand the reasons for delays in the implementation of the project or task. Maybe the task is not so important? Or does it not bring closer to the goal?

Subtraction instead of addition is effective and productive. Maybe you need to focus on doing less? Perhaps a project that takes too much time actually reduces productivity and should be abandoned?

Now it's your turn

Procrastination can be fought; this requires some self-awareness and certain efforts. Applying only a small part of the above methods, it is quite possible to direct yourself on the path leading to higher productivity.

PS We recommend another useful article on the topic of working on yourself: Overcoming labor marathons: a 3-step method of increasing productivity, which allows you to avoid working at night .

The author of the translation is Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of TESTutor .