One of the biggest barriers to your accomplishments is probably procrastination. Whenever you hear yourself saying “someday” or “when I get time” or any number of delay tactic statements, you are procrastinating. If you let it continue, you will find yourself under constant stress and self-loathing. You may even start to dread things that you used to love.
Everyone becomes a victim to procrastination as some point in their lives. The sense of procrastination will often hold us back from our goals and prevent us from truly reaching our potential. There is, however, a way to combat it and allow you to come out on top.
Step 1: Identify if you really need to do the task
Often we find ourselves procrastinating over items we’ve tasked ourselves to do. Sometimes these items are critical but there are times when the things we try to do aren’t actually necessary. This ends up causing us undo stress and unnecessary burden.
So the first step to combatting procrastination is to be honest with yourself in identifying if the task is truly something that needs to be accomplished. If the answer is no then stop beating yourself up and let go of the task.
Step 2: Identify why you’re procrastinating
Once you’ve eliminated all the unnecessary tasks, you are left with the things that must get done. Now you need to go through each and clearly identify why you’re delaying. What is it about that job or task that is making you not want to accomplish it? Unless we face what we fear and dread, we will never be able to overcome it.
Step 3: Seek help
Often why we procrastinate is because we aren’t the expert in accomplishing the work or we don’t have the right skill set to do it. In other words, we’re beating ourselves up over something we just aren’t able to do in the first place. Stop hurting yourself like that and be open to seek help. There is nothing wrong with finding and receiving help. For instance, if you’re procrastinating on doing your taxes, maybe it’s worthwhile to find a CPA to help you.
Obviously you can’t get something for nothing in life so seeking help may involve returning something. It may not be monetary in nature. Thus, it’s important to consider what are your strengths and what can you offer to someone else that might be of value and help them with overcoming their procrastination issues. Create a win-win situation and both of you come out on top.
Step 4: Break it into bite-sized chunks
Bigger tasks can be daunting, even with the help of others. So the next step is to break the overall task into small subtasks. Make the steps reasonably sized that you’re able to finish the task quickly and efficiently. Then, focus your attention on the smaller tasks and you will find it easier to accomplish the overall job without even realizing it.
Step 5: Reward yourself
Don’t forget to reward yourself for overcoming the procrastination and getting the task accomplished. If the task is big, setup goals and milestones along the way that allow you to celebrate while you’re working through your bite-sized chunks. Pick an appropriate reward that makes sense and doesn’t end up causing you additional stress in other areas.
Procrastination can halt the progress of even the best person. Left unchecked it will trickle into other aspects of your life and begin to make you dread even unrelated things. Don’t let it stop you from accomplishing your dreams!