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Are You a Procrastinator? Here are 15 Solutions

Posted on by in Self-Improvement

A few habits that are commonly found in majority of individuals tend to destroy their life because while they may not seem to be very serious, they actually are very harmful. One of these habits is procrastination that is most commonly found among the young individuals, students to be specific.

avoid-become-procrastinator

Procrastination literally refers to the act of delaying a task out of laziness or some other reasons. A survey revealed that high school and college students were found to have the highest rates of procrastination when it comes to the completion of assignments and projects.

Students reported that since professors allow them ample of time, they feel lazy to begin the task earlier and procrastination eventually leads to panic and stress when the time seems insufficient as the deadline arrives. For this reason, educational institutes began conducting workshops on ways to counter procrastination and creating awareness of how procrastination can damage students’ performance throughout their college journey. After consultation from academic experts and students, following 15 ways will be efficient in eliminating procrastination:

1. Divide work into smaller tasks

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Writing a 3000 word essay or working on a multiple pages project seems to be a lot of work and it actually is. This feeling of overwhelming workload leads to procrastination and students feel demotivated. Therefore, experts argue that if people, and not only students, break their tasks into several small parts and schedule each part for a different day, the workload will not seem too much and there will be an incentive to work. So as soon as the task is assigned to you, divide it into smaller parts to eliminate procrastination.

2. Set deadlines for each task

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The fact that students work harder when deadline is near suggests that if several deadlines are fixed for the parts of one big task, students are likely to work regularly rather than procrastinating. When they would know that a task has to be completed in two days, he will work for it and then start working on the next task immediately after the first one. This eliminates procrastination efficiently.

3. Try changing the environment

The environment a person works or studies in is a major determinant of an individual’s productivity. In order to get rid of procrastination, you have to find a suitable environment in which you can work and study. The definition of suitable environment differs from person to person and hence it is your responsibility to recognize which environment suits you the best. Try various environments and you will eventually realize which one helped to work productively out of all the environments.

4. Tell your friends to persuade you to work

An individual is less likely to procrastinate if another individual regularly warns him about the consequences of procrastination. Try to hang out with friends who are concerned about their grades and performance because this way they will persuade you to work too.

5. Remind yourself about the consequences

remind-yourself-consequences

If an individual fears the consequences that are likely to occur, he will avoid wasting time and try not to procrastinate. Whenever you feel like delaying a task, remind yourself that this could lead to a negative impact on the GPA or work so you will eventually avoid procrastination.

6. Take courses that your friends take too

A successful way of eliminating procrastination is by enrolling yourself in courses that your friends are taking too. This would mean that you will have to do all the tasks and assignments with your friends due to which chances of procrastination will be low as one of the friends will surely force you all to work. In this case, if only one of the people is concerned about academic results, he will not let his group members procrastinate too.

7. Clarify your goals

The first and foremost step to put an end to procrastination is to clarify your goals to yourself. A person is less likely to procrastinate if he knows what he has to achieve in life because then he is passionate about achieving the goals. Therefore, remind yourself about your goals so that the feeling of procrastination is eliminated.

8. Seek motivation from others

Whether you are a student at college or an entrepreneur in a competitive market, there are individuals who succeeded in their life goals and are continuing with their efforts to achieve more. If there is a motivation to do something, you are less likely to procrastinate and hence make some successful person your motivation. This will help you avoid procrastination and work hard without wasting time.

9. Simplify the tasks if possible

In the professional life, there are several ways to deal with an issue. If you complicate the tasks by yourself, the urge to procrastinate gets stronger and hence the experts always advice to simplify the tasks as much as possible. Listen to how others are dealing with the issue and use the approach that seems the simplest to you.

10. Do not break the flow of work or study

Once you decide to begin working on an assignment, just start doing it and keep all distractions aside. After a few minutes, you will develop a smooth flow which shall not be broken. Once you break the flow, the feeling of procrastination will arise and you will feel like delaying the task till the deadline approaches near.

11. Learn to accept and work on the criticisms

accept-criticisms

Throughout your journey from high school to college and beyond, you will meet people who will criticize you for several things like being underweight, performing poorly in a task and so on. If you work on these criticisms rather than feeling offended by them, you will eventually have to eliminate procrastination from your life.

12. Assume more workload than it usually is

A study revealed that people tend to work actively under pressure and stress so if you assume the workload to be more than it actually is, you will try to avoid procrastination and work regularly without wasting time.

13. Keep yourself busy with productive work

Too much of leisure time leads to the temptation of procrastinating. Therefore, keep yourself busy with academics and part time work if you are a student. Get involved in freelancing if there is nothing else to do so that your laziness is cured. This way, you can not only utilize your time productively but also earn some extra money which is always a great incentive to work.

14. Visualize yourself after achieving the goals

If you think of the ways this achievement can benefit you, it will act as an incentive for you to work hard and not procrastinate. Rather than focusing on how difficult or lengthy the task is, pay attention to the success factor and you will be able to eliminate procrastination.

15. Never work on anything alone

Students, in an attempt to maximize learning, work on the tasks all alone which leads to unmanageable workload and hence procrastination. Therefore, you should always ask others to help you with completing the tasks as it will make the task seem simpler so you just want to get rid of it.

Through a combination of these strategies, you will be able to eliminate procrastination completely and utilize the given time well in academic and professional life.

Author: Jennifer Solomon

Jennifer Solomon is a psychologist who owns a clinic in Manchester. She obtained her postgraduate degree in clinical psychology at Best Assignment Help and conducts counseling sessions with those in need.

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