How To Stop Procrastinating - 8 Life Hacks For Procrastinators

There is almost nothing in the world that will sabotage your peace of mind, productivity, and ability to hit goals like procrastination. This crippling characteristic that millions of people have developed will have you wasting precious time, missing precious moments and opportunities, killing your self esteem, and diminishing your reputation. The thing is, most people are aware that they are procrastinators; some even brag about it. Others have been taught that waiting until the last minute creates pressure and helps them produce their best work.

The truth is, procrastination is a peace of mind killer. It creates stress, anxiety, and feelings of being overwhelmed - which actually causes depression. So, when you procrastinate, not only are you alienating your goals, dreams, and responsibilities; you are also creating potential mental health and self esteem issues for yourself. But, enough of that. You’re reading this because you know you procrastinate and you’re looking for the life hacks to help you stop. So let’s jump right in!

Eight Life Hacks To Stop Procrastinating:

1. Reassess your goals, responsibilities, or things to do. A big reason why people procrastinate is because they are uninspired. If the thing that you want or need to do does not motivate you, if it does not feel purposeful, if it does not give you joy or happiness when doing it; then you will not feel like doing it. It becomes something that you’re having to force yourself to do, and once it feels forced, you’ll start to procrastinate. To resolve this, you should reassess your goal, responsibility, or task. Ask yourself why you are doing it.

If it’s a goal you’re trying to hit, then the goal should have a reason that you want to achieve it that is meaningful and purposeful to your life. Otherwise, it’s superficial and will not get you inspired to work on it consistently.

If it’s a responsibility or just something that you need to get done that you don’t like or love but you MUST do, then the task should be thought of in a way that creates positive feelings about doing it. For example, if you need to pay your bills (I am sure this qualifies as a responsibility that you MUST do that is not enjoyable, lol) but you constantly find yourself procrastinating even when you have the money to pay them, change your mindset about paying bills. Instead of feeling annoyed or discouraged by how expensive a bill is, or thinking about how little money you’ll have left after paying, or any other negative thought you have about paying bills; think about how blessed you are to have enough money to keep your lights on, have a roof over your head, and food in the refrigerator. Changing the way you think of your responsibility or task will lighten the emotional load and relieve overwhelm which can get you in the mindset of getting things done and feeling positive, productive, and accomplished - HUGE boost for your self esteem too!

2. Adjust your timelines/expectations and give yourself more time to complete tasks/goals. Goals and tasks that are set with too short of a timeframe to complete them are a set up for failure. Short timeframes for achievement create pressure, and remember what we talked about above - pressure breeds stress, anxiety, and induces feelings of depression. You have to be more patient with yourself when setting timelines for goal achievements. When you begin to think about how much you need to get done, you get overwhelmed and then put it off - this is procrastination, and it’s self inflicted sabotaging. You can’t expect to lose 20 lbs in 2 weeks. You can’t expect to start a business and make money in 2 months. You can’t start a new job and expect to be at top pay in 6 months. I’m not saying that these things are impossible, I’m saying that they are not practical.

Setting aggressive timeframes to hit goals will ultimately lead to abandoning the goal/plan after a short period of time of not seeing any results… and the reason is because your expectations were unrealistic for your life, abilities/skills, or resources. So, review your expectations and stretch out your timeframe, it’ll release the pressure that you’re putting on yourself and allow you to focus on getting the task done.

3. Break your goals, tasks, or responsibilities down into small steps. This suggestion can/should be done in conjunction with #2 above. After you readjust your timeframe/expected completion date, then you should break down the goal or task into small steps. The goal is to complete small chunks of the overall goal/task each day consistently over a period of time. This is a ‘less is more’ concept, and I can personally attest to the fact that it works.

Here’s an example of how to put this in action. Let’s say your goal/task is to save $2,000. The first thing that you’ll want to do is # 2 - adjust the timeframe that you want to achieve this goal. Be sure to keep your personal situation in mind (like how much money you earn vs your expenses) so that you can create a practical and realistic timeframe. Next, create a plan that you can break into small chunks, examples - start by saving $20 per week for 3 weeks, then take your lunch instead of buying food for 3 weeks, next increase your saving to $40 per week, and so on. Slowly compounding your actions over time will take longer, but that is why you have to learn patience. Working towards a goal or completing a task or project in small digestible chunks will prevent you from getting discouraged, burnt out, and overwhelmed.

4. Find purposeful motivation. Ideally, as we discussed in suggestion #1, your goal or task will be purposeful and meaningful enough to keep you motivated; but we all know that there are just some days when the doubt seeps in and we start second guessing whether or not we can actually achieve the goal. For days and moments like this, it’s good to have a practice for getting your mind out of the negative talk and back into a positive and confident place. A few good ways to do this are watching motivational videos on YouTube, listening to a motivational podcast, reading a self improvement/self help blog or book, talking with someone who uplifts or inspires you, or tuning in to your favorite motivational social media influencer to recalibrate your mindset back to bad chick status.

5. Get organized. Start by prioritizing what you want/need to do, then create a ‘to-do’ list and write it down. If your house, car, office, or workspace is a mess - clean it up. If you have 2,000 thoughts, ideas, goals, or things to do that are swarming around in your mind - do a brain dump (there is a free course on the website that will teach you how to do this, click here if you’re interested. Bottom line, you can not get things done if you have too much physical or mental clutter. So, get organized… and if you are struggling to get started, ask for help.

6. Create a schedule. This is step 2 of the above suggestion. Once you get organized, create a schedule for the things that you need to do. And don’t forget suggestion # 2 and 3 when making your schedule - give yourself longer periods of time to get things done and schedule your tasks in small chunks.

7. Take breaks. This is important because most of us expect our brains and bodies to operate at high levels of efficiency for too long of a period of time. Physically and mentally, your body can not handle intense focus for a long time. So, try working on a task for an hour, then take a 10 minute break before going back in for another hour or so.

8. Incent yourself. Once you complete suggestion # 3 and break your goals/tasks down into smaller chunks, give yourself an incentive for completing the activity. For example, when I write these blogs, I break them up over the course of two days writing half on one day, then the 2nd half on the next. After finishing each half, I allow myself to browse amazon and put things in my shopping cart that I want, lol. I don’t purchase them at that moment, but over the course of 2 or 3 weeks, I’ll have about 6 or 7 items in my cart that I do purchase as reward for a different accomplishment. It may sound silly, but I look forward to it!

If you incorporate a few of these hacks in your life right away, the results you see in just a few days to a week will be inspiring… and let’s talk about how you’ll feel - the surge in confidence, the belief and faith in yourself and your abilities, and the motivation you’ll feel to keep going will be so gratifyingly addictive.

So, go on and get started and assassinate your habit of procrastination and watch your goals, dreams, and desires manifest.