Procrastination: How To Stop Procrastinating (7 Powerful Tips)

You want to know How to stop procrastinating and you’ve got huge plans in mind.

You want to cut loose on your diet, exercise more often, and begin to save money daily.

Of course, these are very great plans but unfortunately, you find yourself in that situation where you are unable to meet up with your plans.

You have the strong desire to keep to the plans but you lack the will to actually do them.

So, you keep repeatedly delaying on your necessary activities while you give yourself a reason to justify your slacking act.

This is procrastination, it’s bad, really, really bad and we can help you stop it.

Welcome to Thriven Authority and in today’s topic, we’ll be covering some proven tips that’ll help you stop the procrastination and start taking immediate actions.

let’s get started.

Tip Number One: See Every Task As Urgent

Most people see procrastination as an act of laziness or as the lack of self-control.

Though, these concepts might seem related to idea of procrastination, they are far away from being close to explaining what procrastination truly is.

Procrastination means to delay an activity for another period of time but this doesn’t necessarily mean voluntary delaying.

It is more of uncontrolled than controlled.

The truth is that the human brain is wired to focus on what’s currently in front of it.

Be it a project deadline, a ringing phone, or an untidied room, the brain tends to attend to what if considers more urgent than others.

As a result, big or small tasks are still pushed down the queue for several period of time till they get prioritized.

Dr. Pychyl and Dr. Sirois discovered in a 2013 study that procrastination is the primacy of short-term mood repair, the state of being focused on managing things of immediate urgency.

This means, to put an end to your procrastination, you need to start seeing each activity as urgent and start handling them with urgency.

Tip Number Two: Eliminate The Fear Of Failure

Remember we said that procrastination is the state of focusing on the urgent?

Well, this leads us to question how the brain decides which activity is urgent?

Is there a natural selection to it? Is there any order as to how it goes? Or does the brain just pick it all at random?

Well, the answer is that the brain runs through each activity and deciphers which one can’t be left unattended.

But this method isn’t exactly a fair one.

From a study made by researchers at York University, it was discovered that procrastination often come as a result of the fear of disapproval.

This means, if you leave your brain to decide on which activity is to be considered urgent, it would filter based on the activities you can handle without failing.

The fear of failure will lead you to procrastinating even more.

Procrastination and perfection are somehow linked and the continuous feel that you aren’t worth the standard will make you continue to push back on things that needs your attention.

Therefore, to stop procrastinating, take a step to overcome your fear of failure.

Tip Number Three: Try Putting Yourself Under Pressure

Remember when you were able to cram that entire twenty pages of foreign history just a few hours before your mid-semester test?

Seems really cool, right?

Well, while cramming your courses isn’t such a good idea, being able to pull off something of such nature is really cool and you just might be able to apply this into stopping your procrastination.

The simple trick behind you being able to cram the twenty pages history handout is pressure.

You felt the pressure imposed upon you by the coming test.

You knew you can’t afford to fail it so you ensured you must do everything necessary to pass.

A 2002 research made by some Harvard University students stated that some people were able to work much faster due to time-pressure.

Though not everyone can cope under pressure, you have to make each of your activities timed and work towards finishing up before the set time.

Tip Number Four: Make Your Tasks A Priced Competition

As humans, one of our core natures is the love for challenge.

The desire to always prove to be the best version of ourselves and of others is a major part in our overall development.

Challenges have grown over the years to be more than just something friends do among themselves but something that a huge amount of the population participates in.

There’s a chance you’ve participated in one of these challenges but have you ever tried this challenge on your personal development?

Have you challenged yourself to exceed a certain bar?

A study published in the European journal of personality shows that people who procrastinated did so because they saw other options that were fun related.

The human brain wants challenge but no just any challenge, it wants a challenge with a certain gain.

Why not try keeping your food away and making it the price of the challenge.

In this case, you don’t get to eat unless you finish up certain activities.

It’s a fun act and your brain would have no choice but to consent to it.

Tip Number Five: Set Micro Goals And Achieve Them

According to president Dwight Eisenhower, plans are quite worthless but they are the building blocks of everything.

Planning ahead of everyday gives you’re a purpose for that day.

This same concept of planning can be applied to procrastination and can be used to stop it.

The plans you make for the day give you a reason to live that day.

The same goes for the goals you set.

The goals give you a reason to work because without so much reasons to do work, you’ll end up getting weary and burned out.

In fact, a study on motivation surprisingly shows that abstract thinking about one’s goals can help in developing discipline.

When you set simple goals ahead of yourself needed to be achieved, you feel the need to work.

You challenge yourself to finish. Aiming big is therefore, not a bad advice but a key to eliminating that procrastination.

Tip Number Six: Avoid Possible Distractions

You might not know this but some many things might be causing you to postpone your activities.

These things might also seem like important stuff but they aren’t.

You need to type your project but you decide to post on social media first.

Sure, posting on social media is also a part of your daily activities but opening social media might mean closing it after 30 minutes.

Distractions are everywhere, and according to Gloria Mark’s study, people distract themselves every 40 seconds when working behind a computer.

Now, imagine how much you get to distract yourself when on your phone.

In general, avoid any distractions. They might seem necessary but they are not important.

Tip Number Seven: Be Sure To Always Take A Break

Remember the saying… all work and no play makes jack a dull boy…?

It turns out this statement is true and you truly need to play sometimes to achieve even more.

When you work over and over again, your body gets tired. If you keep working with your tired body, you’ll become quite selective of the things you do.

You tend to choose the lighter tasks and might even decide not to do anything anymore for the day.

But if you work and take breaks in between your work, then you get to rebuild your body and do more as you go.

In an article published by Inc.com, you need to follow a 52-minutes of work with a 17-minutes of break.

To stop procrastinating and start taking actions starts with your desire to change.

Once you’ve concluded you are ready to make changes, then start putting these tips to use and you will be very happy you did.

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