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Procrastination is the enemy of success.
What is Procrastination?
“Procrastination is the habit of delaying an important task, usually by focusing on less urgent, more enjoyable, and easier activities instead.”
You also desperately asked yourself today: how to stop procrastinating? You wanted to be productive today, get a lot of things done but you couldn’t get away from your phone?
I know that feeling, but how to overcome procrastination? When schoolwork catches up with me and I have to study, I use the Pomodoro technique. For those that don’t know, this means you break your workday into 25-minute pieces separated by five-minute breaks. Usually, after 4 repeats there is a longer break. And repeat — this can be done all day. The five-minute break is to replenish some energy and help you to continue your concentration. Because as we all know, it’s almost impossible to concentrate for long periods of time.
But so often I find myself taking a two-hour break after 25 minutes of learning. So I end up killing an entire afternoon watching TikTok instead of doing useful things.
This article was written after telling myself 5 times that I should do something. Preceded by the monologue “it’s too late, there’s no point in starting homework”.
This article is full of my personal tips, on how do I stop procrastinating, which help me to stay concentrated. And maybe it will answer your question “How to stop procrastinating”.
Plan your things. Stay scheduled.
First, a really useful thing to learn how to stop procrastinating is to use To-Do lists for everything. For me personally, anything that I have not written down doesn’t exist. If you keep your To-Do list in front of your eyes all the time it will be harder to give up. To skip your task.
It is also effective to have your own physical To-Do list if you know you can’t follow the digital To-Do list. Take a notebook and write everything you have up for the day.
For digital To-do lists, I can really recommend Notion. I recommend trying it out, it’s completely free! Notion will definitely help you avoid procrastination.
Throw away everything that distracts you.
Especially Turn off your phone and throw it away!.
Seriously! Otherwise, you’ll still be tempted to look at what the new trend is on TikTok, or if your friend added a new, uninteresting story on Instagram. Don’t worry, the online world can do without you for a while.
I usually turn on DO NOT DISTURB mode, where all the notifications are suppressed. The only notifications allowed are from contacts in your favorites list. In my case, only from my mom. Then I put my phone in the other room and do not touch it even when I am on my break.
Tell your brain that what you’re learning (doing) is actually really interesting.
A lot of subjects are totally uninteresting — I don’t care what happened two thousand years BC on the third planet of the solar system. But I have to convince myself that I’m really interested. Of course, you won’t be able to focus for long on the thing you’ve been telling yourself how stupid it is all along.
How?
Seek out information beyond what you are learning. Try to find something on each topic that really gets you pumped up. Most of the time you can find something at least a little interesting on everything.
Colour, mark, transcribe. Learning from nice, colorful notes will also be easier and more interesting than from ugly notes written on toilet paper. Once you get into the learning process everything will be easier. If you are doing something interesting you won’t be tempted to do something else and thus avoid procrastination.
This tip is also related to the fact that you should rather use and take your own notes and learn from them. It is a bummer sometimes, to write everything yourself. But even when you are rewriting from a textbook you will memorize a lot.
Look in the future, to long-term goals
This is one of my favorite. That usually helps me personally stop procrastinating. This is what keeps me alive at University.
Tell yourself “If I keep doing this on schedule I will achieve this by then…” For example, If I keep maintaining the blog and writing articles I may meet success.
Reward yourself, you have successfully learned how to stop procrastinating!
Every break, take a cookie, after each calculated exercise, take a candy, etc… I will go much better and faster if you have something to look forward to.
Create your time schedule, once you reach your desired learning time, or your goal at any given time, just drop it. You are done and you will still have more dedication for tomorrow, than learning through the night.
Pro tip: According to the internet, alcohol will help with memorization — once you are done have a beer, a glass of wine, or your favorite alcoholic beverage. But everything in moderation.
Conclusion
You have to find your thing. It is never easy to stop doing something you are comfortable with and start doing something productive. I totally understand, it is easier to be on your phone looking at social media than doing homework… Everyone has their own answer to the question of How to avoid procrastination. And over time the one thing you used to procrastinate through will become a habit.
And remember, it’s okay to procrastinate once in a while. That you don’t always have to be perfect!