How To Handle Chronic Procrastination

There are usually always enough things to do everyday. We ideally do not want to carry over yesterday’s task into today because it would tamper with today’s arrangement and we might end up with this cycle of backlogs. Procrastination has an innovative way of letting the above happen to us, all the time. 

I am one of those most given to procrastination. I am also one of those that almost never give in to procrastination. Sounds contradicting. Or not. Read again. 

The magical interval between the first and second sentence in the previous paragraph is awareness and mastery. 

I have successfully become very aware of my procrastination tendencies and used that completely to my advantage. Getting things done even more likely than one with no such tendencies. If you want to find out how, keep reading. 

What I would be doing here is sharing proven and practical tips that I use and have been working for me. Hey, check out some of my results and you would agree with me that I get things done. So if you would like to be like me and be a doer and the force that always get things done, you might want to try the following tips. They are not some magical trucks or anything you’ve never heard or known before. I bet that even makes it easier to put them to practice. 

First, you want to be sure you have a procrastination problem. Check out some of the tell-tale signals that you might have one of those in your hands. 

How To Find Out You Are Dealing With Chronic Procrastination

1. You get easily distracted. 
2. You keep putting off important deadlines. 
3. You would rather be involved in every other thing but that one task you really should be about. 
4. You like working under pressure. This is a façade, however. It is simply an inability to do things at the right time until you are almost running out of time. 
5. Thoughts of responsibilities and tasks throw you  into a state of fright. 

How To Overcome Procrastination

Here are some practical, doable tips you can adopt to get the best out of your chronic procrastination situation:

1. First, reconcile with the fact that you are solely responsible for your actions and inactions. It does not matter who is checking in, supervising, or pushing you to do certain things. At the end of the day, you and only you are solely responsible for what you get done and what you don’t. With the first point out of the way, we can move to the next. 
2. Allow yourself to start multiple projects. Yes, another manifestation of procrastination is a tendency to have multiple commitments scattered without completing any. So you’re plagued with the condemnation of starting many things and never completing any. However, you can train your mind to be productive and effective even with different projects open. Different apps on your phone. Different tabs on your iPad or laptop. This syndrome might be similar to ADHD syndrome. I’d share this in detail in a subsequent article. 
3. Set achievable milestones for tasks. This will help with your short attention span. Discipline yourself to commit ten minutes, thirty minutes, or an hour to this task or project as the case demands. Do not give in to the pressing pressure of falling short of the set time. Note, this will not be perfected overnight. You will fail. That you will. However, the more set on improving yourself and keeping at it, the more your chances of beating the bad guy. 
4. Practice the carrot method. This is derived from the sticks-and-carrots approach but with a convenient omission of the sticks. Also, this time, you are the subject and object. For clarity, this is simply a reward system. For every time you stayed committed to a task for the set duration, reward yourself with something you would appreciate. You don’t have to set up a separate bank account for this. A simple sole date, little body pampering or a literal “carrot” to boost your body vitamins would go a long way. 
5. Fail. Repeat. Fail. Repeat and Repeat. 
6. Realize that, sometimes, a chronic exhibition of random irresponsibility one of which is grave procrastination could be a tell-tale sign of some emotional imbalance and mental health related. HIT UP YOUR THERAPIST. Get one if you do not have one yet. 

Let me know if this article helped.