5 ways to stop procrastinating and getting stuff done

15th September 2017
Do you feel overwhelmed and can’t seem to get anything done, is this taking a toll on your life? Its time to be honest with each other, no sugar coating or sweet talking. You are on a detour because you are yoked to the most non-progressive, unproductive and retrogressive ‘culprit’-Procrastination.
It all starts with entertaining a small excuse or trivialising what needs doing now until you get overwhelmed. Listening to Jane’s voice quiver as she spoke about how procrastination ruined her, left me feeling aghast. “OK, I know procrastination is my downfall. I loathe myself for doing it. I am so done. I am sick and done of the anxiety and guilt associated with procrastination. I can’t answer or put my fingers on what l do daily, absolutely nothing. My mind is preoccupied with shifting and prolonging things l really got to do. Whelp!!! This is drowning me. “
This could be you or me. No-one is immune from procrastination. I am not just talking about the average Jane and Mary. Even the most successful people also suffer from resistance. This is how natural it gets. The difference with the successful people is that they keep taking action. They don’t let procrastination dictate their destination, they overcome it. You too can overcome it.
Make no mistake Over-coming procrastination is a real struggle but if you follow these tips, you will soon take charge and commandeer your life.

• Avoid Over Commitment

When setting on starting a career, new health plan, business or project you don’t have to set complex and difficult targets. Failing to meet ambitious targets can lead to procrastination and eventually making you to drop everything and begin empowering negative voices from within. A huge complex project, business or commitment can be daunting to start. Sometimes we just don’t know where to begin so its easier to find excuses and park the work for now. I urge you to take a different approach, unbundle things into achievable and less daunting activities. Where you would probably allocate many hours to accomplish a task, you can now utilise even half an hour to successfully complete an activity. Accomplishing many of small activities fires you and motivates you to want to do more. You at least look forward to tackling the next activity. This approach also allows you to get zoned, concentrate the most and even get better results.

• Be accountable.

We can be a funny lot. If you want to push someone, play them the guilt or shame card and see how far they go. Using guilt or shame can be effective motivational assets. So how can you utilise these tools which if you were to use against yourself could end up affecting your esteem? I let you in a secret. There is nothing as difficult as escaping accountability from your own loved one. So for that business to kick off, for you to stick to that diet, to continue searching for career opportunities-share your ambitions and milestones with a loved one. Your loved one can manage your guilt and humiliation. You would feel embarrassed to fail so you have no choice but to pull your socks because the pain of failing is just unbearable compared to the pain of doing the work involved. So you are just going to get on with it to avoid being put to shame. You become accountable to your own work.

• Reward Yourself

Set yourself a cheat treatment, little “bribe” and reward. You have managed to stick to your plans and completed tasks, who can blame you for patting yourself at the back. If you can afford it, get some fresh air and spoil yourself. In the process you are eroding the possibilities of your tendencies to procrastinate. This is a way of saying, there is a price for your sweat and for getting things done.
The reward system works with everyone. That reward for taking away time from your usual social media, the long hours spent watching TV can be the very thing you need to beat procrastination.

• Shut the enemy within

There are days when you feel motivated and energised ready to go. You have read a few affirmations and psyched yourself up to take on a new day but suddenly you hear voices from within say “yes, that can wait you don’t have time for that”. Listening to the enemy from within stops you from starting that business, starting on the new diet, getting that business plan completed.
Why don’t you take time to understand these negative voices? Get to know yourself better and when you are likely to experience the negative voices. Be sure to counter them using affirmations on a daily basis. Yes somedays you will stumble, somedays you will be over-powered but the more you feed on positive vibes the more you weaken the inner negative voices. Your subconscious mind eventually open up more space for your positive voice and shut out the enemy from within .

• Just do it

It is not by mere coincidence that one of the biggest sporting brands chose Just do it as its slogan. If you are thinking of jogging every morning, just do it , want to change a career, just do it , want to start a new brand, why not, just do it . Time to literally rally behind the catch phrase –Just do it .
I can’t repeat this enough but whatever you are facing just do it and just do it now. You have the task to be done, get on with it and it will soon be over. You will be surprised how much joy you would get soon after, that same feeling you get after cracking on a complex problem, dropping buckets of sweat after taking on jogging, getting recognition for building your brand. Seize each day and take control of your life.
Procrastination is no angel as everything about it is ruinous. If you gamble and take your chance with it, it will dampen your creativity and hamper your productivity. Procrastination can driver you to low-down funks and trigger anxiety. I take the issue of procrastination to heart as it can be the very stumbling block stopping you from reaching your destination, making the necessary changes and gaining full control of your life. It can never be too late, and soon you will start to see the difference in your life.