5 Surefire Ways To Stop Procrastinating

It makes you wonder why the human brain was wired up in such a way that it allows time wasting procrastination to make life more difficult. We are all guilty of it, from students studying for exams, right through to labourers and office workers. It is the act of putting things off by choosing anything but the task at hand to concentrate on.

We seem to take our place in front of the computer first thing in the morning knowing full well the amount of work we have to get through during the day, but for some unknown reason we have to check the news sites first, despite just leaving the early morning edition of the new on TV that supposedly brought us up to date anyway. From there you check your Facebook page, then you’ll probably look around for anything else of doubtful interest, knowing that time is fast slipping away.

All this procrastination is just putting off the inevitable, although you know that once you actually start work you will enjoy it for the rest of the day. If you can beat this overwhelming urge to procrastinate, your productivity will skyrocket. What then can you do about it? It just so happens that there is quite a lot you can do, for instance here are five sure-fire tips you can put into action immediately:

1. Take control and do what you have to do. When it all comes down to it, you will find the best action we can take to prevent us from procrastinating is to simply take control, actually tell yourself to get to work and get started now, straight away, this very minute. Don’t weaken for one second. Ignore the feeling that you must do something else first then all will be alright. It won’t be alright, and you know it. Ignore all the temptations and simply start work.

1. Eliminate boredom. The cause of a lot of procrastination is the boredom of your surroundings as much as the work itself. You might have noticed that whenever you begin work on something new and challenging you seldom procrastinate. In fact you probably couldn’t sleep the night before because you were so keen to get started the next morning. Much of our daily work is what people call ‘grind.’ Grinding your way through piles of work that you have done thousands of times before. That is the nature of work however, and to ease this subconscious boredom you can try cleaning up your office a bit so that you are not confronted with the same uninspiring vision hour after hour, day after day and month after month. If possible take your work to a completely different environment now and again. If you can do it on a lap top away from the office do so, even if it means a McDonalds car park  or under a tree in the town square.

1. Get rid of temptation. If you are the type of person who tends to procrastinate now and again even after you have started work, you are fast becoming a procrastinating addict. It is like your mind wandering while you work. You think to yourself, ‘I wonder who’s on Facebook at the moment?’ or ‘I wonder what’s new on YouTube?’ This means these links are too easy to reach. A bit like an alcoholic having a bottle of brandy in the desk draw. Get all the tempting icons off your desktop and put them in a folder marked, ‘don’t touch till finished.’ In this way your brain will be reminded of its weaknesses in this regard and prompt you to change your ways.

1. Organise your time. If you know the amount of work you have to get through each week, cut that down to how much you have to do each day. You will probably be doing this already as it’s just part of setting deadlines and tracking your work, but subconsciously your mind could be telling you, ‘you have all day to get through all this work, a few minutes browsing won’t do any harm because you know you can catch up later.’ A few minutes browsing can become quite a long while very easily and before you know it you are taking work home to get it finished. You can avoid this by cutting your day up into two hour segments. Two hours of work then take a break before starting your next two hours. You will soon find you won’t have time to procrastinate too long as your brain can appreciate the tight time frame better and will understand what you have to do to get your work finished inside two hours.

1. Be honest with yourself. It might sound silly but sometimes your worst enemy can actually be yourself. You enjoy procrastinating even though it makes completing your day’s objectives that much harder. You tell yourself you must stop this time wasting practice but do you really want to? If you find you are telling yourself that you will start taking action to change things tomorrow but things are right for today, you will be on a slippery path towards doing nothing about it at all. Whatever the reason for changing your ways tomorrow that reason will be equally true right now. If you intend on making any changes at all do it now and don’t procrastinate about it.

If after all this you find you still procrastinate it maybe that you have become bored with your job. It could be time to start looking around for another that is more challenging. Only you will know how much truth is in this but if you are sincere in wanting to lift your production level, the first step will be in exercising self control by eliminating your tendency towards procrastination.

This article was written by Justin Toladro from Life Insurance Finder. Compare life insurance in Australia to find the right policy for you and your family.

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