Note: This article is by Darius Foroux, who presents a summary of his research and experience in overcoming procrastination.
The best definition of procrastination
We are all procrastinators, and it can be said in principle that procrastination is the postponement of work for no good reason. and some experts and references define a procrastinator as someone who does not work on the task that must be completed by a certain deadline.
But this definition is wrong, it claims that we are not procrastinators if we get our work done, and if this is the case, the result is that most people are not procrastinators, which is definitely not true.
A recent study I conducted on a sample of 2,219 people showed that 88% of all people admit that they procrastinate for at least an hour a day, and this percentage is logical and accurate, because we all procrastinate most of our tasks without a good reason. Sometimes, we start a task or a project, but we don't get it done because of procrastination.
Examples of procrastination
When you put off a task for a good reason you are not procrastinating, but what is the good reason? It is the reason based on the fact that the quality of your performance will improve if you postpone. For example, we assume that there is a person who must prepare a report, but he is surprised by new developments that he must include in the report. In this case, this person can postpone the preparation of the report until he studies carefully the developments, on this basis, the quality of his work will improve.
However, most of our work does not improve by procrastination. If you want to go to the gym, your argument for postponing it until tomorrow will not be acceptable, because your performance will not improve tomorrow, on the contrary, your performance will decrease tomorrow due to the disruption of your daily schedule.
Two years ago, I gave a lecture at Stenden University in the Netherlands, during which I reported my findings on procrastination to the professor who invited me to give the lecture. When I met him some time ago to discuss my next lecture at the university, he showed me a graph that shows everything about student behavior.
The university has an online app available for students to practice for exams, and the graph shows how almost all students at the beginning of the semester never practice with this app.
Some mutations appear in the graph at the beginning of the semester, and this is often due to the fact that the professor explains the application to the students, so they want to try it, but as soon as the beginning of the semester ends, the students stop training completely, or complete any exercise they started with, and so on until the exam date is soon, Most students start practicing on the fly; This is because most of us had this behavior during college, and it continued long after we graduated.
In our work we also procrastinate, it suffices to remember how many times I postponed working on a project until the last moments, and I emphasize that this pattern of behavior is not limited to study and work, but includes almost all aspects of our personal lives.
For example, we postpone sending the annual income tax until the last day of the deadline for receiving it, but will this postponement make our tax calculation more accurate? Probably not, and I would almost say that we are more likely to make mistakes because of the time pressure we have imposed on ourselves.
Some people claim that they do not feel the enthusiasm and energy to do the work well unless they feel that they have little time left, and I know journalists who stress that they can only do a good job at the last minute of the deadline.
But it's not a balanced way of living and working. When you're close to a deadline, and you haven't accomplished anything, you feel more stressed, and while stress may improve your focus, in the short term, it has negative effects on your safety and wellness.
Long-term or chronic stress can lead to depression, anxiety, heart disease, high blood pressure, heart failure, heart attacks, obesity, eating disorders, and other health problems. Therefore, procrastination should not be taken lightly as a problem.
Benefits of stopping procrastination
Procrastination is an internal struggle that can destroy our safety and well-being; So here are three main benefits of overcoming procrastination:
1. Reduce anxiety
The more we procrastinate, and the longer we wait to start important things, the more anxious and stressed we are. Doing the work is never easy.
If you wait until tomorrow, you will feel more anxious about getting started. If you beat procrastination and take immediate action, you will get things done. You remove the anxiety from this task before to feel it.
2. High self-discipline
Research shows that procrastination is not just a time management problem. One of the biggest causes of procrastination is poor self-discipline, and the main benefit of overcoming procrastination is that you automatically increase your self-discipline.
3. Improving the quality of work
People who don't procrastinate, work better. When you work with less stress and have high self-discipline, you give yourself the opportunity to do a better job.
Most scientific research on procrastination focuses on the negative side. The negative effects are clear, but the benefits are often not talked about. It should be clear that overcoming procrastination is the basis of every achievement in life. This is because delaying important things is a devastating habit. When you don't delay tasks and take immediate action, your safety and well-being improve as well as the quality of your work.
Difficulties facing us that lead to procrastination
Before I present the best, most common ways to beat procrastination, we'll first focus on the biggest problems that lead to procrastination. If you don't address these barriers, no way to beat procrastination will work:
1. Lack of Strong Motivation
What is your motive? Why do you do this work? We often set goals, and strive to achieve them, but we are not self-motivated behind this goal.
Doing things for the approval of others, to reach a prestige, or to meet the expectations of others who expect us to do this or that work will lead to procrastination.
This is how most of us live, we lack intrinsic motivation, and to beat procrastination you must be motivated by things that are within your control, so go after things that give you an inner sense of satisfaction.
2. Fear
There are many types of fear that make us resort to procrastination: Fear of failure, rejection, taking on a new experience, and sometimes fear of success, suffering, living in difficult circumstances, and other things that cannot be mentioned, and the solution to overcome fear is to focus on the present.
3. Lack of knowledge
If you don't know how to do something, learn it, but if you think you can't do it, you will never start learning. This is one of the essential features of a negative mindset. A person with this mentality does not even dare to try, So in order to overcome procrastination, we must have a positive mindset.
These are common difficulties that everyone faces at some point, and they are part of life, and what we must do is focus on what we can control and commit to constantly improving ourselves.
Effective tips to beat procrastination
To beat procrastination, use the following tips; I have been giving a course on this topic, and everything I offer on this topic is based on research. Overcoming procrastination requires a holistic approach, because it affects many aspects of our lives, and the advice I will give is a very good starting point in that direction.
These tips are:
- Start now and do not postpone until tomorrow, always remind yourself that you are committed to accomplishing what you promised yourself, and do not justify yourself for procrastination on the pretext of flimsy reasons, you must live a life full of productivity, happiness, and most importantly a meaningful life, which is something you will not get if you continue to procrastinate.
- Read research and articles that explain procrastination in a scientific way, because if you know the reason, you can overcome the problem, but if you are dealing with something for unknown reasons, you will always feel helpless towards it.
- Know the value of time. If you want to stop wasting something, you must first feel its value and then learn how to manage your time, as the late American writer Peter Drucker says: “Time is the most valuable resource, and If you can't manage it, you won't be able to manage anything else."
- Learn about the disastrous effects of procrastination on your productivity, and beware of the trap that idealistic and very ambitious people fall into, when you try to be perfect, you become more prone to procrastination.
- Turn off the Internet while you work. This helps you a lot to improve your focus. Always remember that staying away from sources of distraction is one of the most effective ways to overcome procrastination, and one of the most effective sources of distraction is the Internet; So you have to cut it off sometimes.
- Maintain adequate sleep hours, Sleep is what makes us regain our energy; So we should get plenty of sleep when we want to get our work done, because when you are tired you are more likely to put off your tasks.
- Make sure to follow a healthy diet.
- Change your system to achieve goals, instead of changing or abandoning goals, focus on what you can control, developing your system and tweaking it so that failure is less likely.
- Keep exercising, as perseverance is an excellent indication that you have really overcome procrastination.
- Enhance your self-confidence in various ways, including achieving gains, the more you believe in your ability to achieve your goals, you will achieve more gains, and the more gains you achieve, the more confident you will be in yourself.
- Practice a form of writing daily. It improves your life. It is another example of your ability to self-discipline, just like exercise. If you are able to write daily for a personal goal, you have really overcome procrastination.
Best books to help you beat procrastination
Understanding human nature helps you to overcome procrastination more than anything else, and the books you will read about are the best books written for dealing with lack of motivation, fear and excessive desires, and thus will undoubtedly help you to change your mindset.
To become a productive person who does not procrastinate, you do not need to know the best techniques, you need to know the motives behind procrastination and also the enthusiasm for work, here are the books that will help you with that:
1. The book "Man's Search for Meaning" by the Austrian psychotherapist "Victor Frankle"
and his ability to observe the behavior of his fellow prisoners in "Auschwitz" led to the writing of this wonderful book. In this book, he describes how a person chooses his mental attitude towards life regardless of the facts and circumstances. Even under the tragic conditions he suffered in the concentration camp, Frankl proved that man is capable of enduring suffering and finding meaning in life, thanks to self-initiated decisions.
2. The book "A Manual for Living" by the Roman philosopher "Epictetus"
and title explains the content of the book, the book gives you a broader perspective on humanity. People have always had self-confidence issues with family, work, and relationships, and somehow nothing has changed, so you will find this book very useful.
3. The book " Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway", by Susan Jeffers
Fear is something that constantly hinders us in our daily lives. Therefore, it is recommended to refer to this book at least once a year.
4. The book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success", by (Carol Dweck)
you will read a new definition of life, which the author presents as an attempt to find solutions, if you consider the risks and consequences, you may remain safe but you will never develop, and this book is one of the best books on developing the mentality one needs to succeed in life.
Tools and apps that really help beat procrastination
Overcoming procrastination is primarily an internal battle, so you don't need a lot of outside help to achieve this.
The tools and applications that I offer are primarily focused on helping you to organize yourself. When you manage yourself daily, you will be able to ensure that you are making the required progress, and progress is the opposite of procrastination. Some of these tools and applications:
1. Rescue time application
when you notice that your productivity is dropping, it will be useful to use this application to measure your performance.
Through this application, you will be able to know how much time you are wasting on unhelpful activities, which will surprise you, after you know the activities that waste your time, all that remains is to get rid of them.
2. Self Control application
which works on the “Mac” system, and the “Focus Me” application, which works on the “Mac” and “Windows” systems, and these two applications are dedicated to blocking websites that cause distraction if you are easily distracted by news and social media apps, these two apps will be just what you need.
What happens is that you may be very consistent and focused on a task, but are distracted by the Internet, So block these sources, thus ensuring that you will not access these sites while working.
Read also: 5 Daily Habits to Help You Overcome Procrastination
3. Notebook and pen
choose the type of notebook you prefer, and carefully choose the type of pen you use, what you do not know is that the type of pen is the most important thing in taking notes.
4. "Day One" application
this application is good when you do not want to use a paper notebook to write a diary, in addition, sometimes it is okay to save some paper and pens.
In conclusion
The problem of procrastination may seem very complicated, and the reason is that solving the problem itself requires stopping procrastination, but if you stick to practical advice on the one hand, and increase your knowledge repertoire on the other hand, and with the use of some help tools and applications, you will reach a stage of productivity where you no longer need to Watch yourself strictly, because you will enjoy what you achieve in life.
Add comment