How to stop procrastination– Don’t wait time will never be just right!

Hello folks, before commencing with today’s journey, I would like to thank all of you for the the immense love and support you’ve shown for my previous blog The Art of Procrastination. I was happy to receive multiple suggestions to continue with this topic and talk about how to overcome the trap of procrastination. So, I paid heed and read more about the psychological aspect of it.

So, without any delay let’s just rewind our memory and think about the present and the future side example in the previous blog and let us dive into our brains to understand what makes the instant gratification more desirable to us than the goals we set. So, when we are assigned a task the two portions of the brain ; the Prefrontal Cortex– (future side in our case) is the part of the brain that is involved in making plans for you and acts as “planner” for the brain and the Limbic System — (present side in our case) is an unconscious part of the brain which includes the pleasure centre, tend to start a fight amongst them. In this fight the Prefrontal Cortex is that guy in every fight who drops his guards because he believes there is no point fighting because there is no instant reward for winning and the Limbic System is again the ultimate winner receiving its prize instantly in the form of dopamine, oxytocin, cortisol, or serotonin which makes us feel good for the moment but sadly, not for a longer term.

While, understanding this mind game helped us discover the reason for consistently postponing the things but we still don’t have a cure yet. Let me share some of the tools that help me on a regular basis to meet my deadlines well in advance:

• Being Mindful:

Mindfulness appears to be a very heavy word but believe me it is not! Mindfulness means to be fully aware of things around you and within you without interpreting and judging anything. The mere acknowledgement of these things is simply an automatic response, that allows us to respond in a more rational, objective way rather than entangling within the emotions of this thought and the question of “Why am I feeling this way?”.

Start to accept the negative feeling as well, I know it is unpleasant sometimes, but they are equally important for your personal growth. If you try to escape it now, you might experience the Snowball Effect sometime later in life. Just think about the time when you wanted to run away from a task but you could not do anything but face them, it may be an exam, a presentation, or a meeting. Now think about the feeling you had after facing them, Ah! A Euphoric moment, isn’t it? That relief and the smile that starts appearing on your face says it all.

As W Clement Stone said, “Aim for the moon, if not you may hit a star.” The point being, it’s always better to start than to not start at all.

• Be Realistic:

I personally don’t like to wake up early, but my Mom always yelled at me and said “You have a different level of energy and productivity if you wake up early” but this didn’t make sense to me. So, I would say if you are not a morning person do not expect yourself to wake up early, but make sure you manage your time accordingly during the day. I believe it is not important at what time of the day you work, but working with utter sincerity and without distractions is important. P.S I have started waking up early it’s only because the stock markets don’t work on my schedule.

• Stop making excuses:

“I will wait for the perfect mood to start my work.”, “I work well under pressure.”, “Arre, bohot din hai abhi toh”

Wait! You have heard this before? Oh! you say it. Stop! making these excuses and scrolling through social media without any purpose, because the content there these days will not give you the mood you are waiting for.

Also stop making excuses for not completing the task on-time due to lack of time (90% it’s because you started it late).We all would agree that projects often take longer time than expected, so start accounting for that extra time and as discussed in the earlier blog prepare your mind for a shorter deadline. This not only keeps you on-time but also reduces the stress.

• Incentivize yourself:

Who doesn’t like treats? Everyone does so let’s start giving ourselves a reward after we complete the task. I’ll share how I do it , I entice my mind by breaking down my task into small chunks and after each chunk I reward myself with things I like, it might be something to eat, watch a movie/show or play cricket. So, in search of instant gratification (-the reward here) my brain automatically gives me the motivation to complete that task hook or by crook. It is exactly how children agree to eat the food (which they would normally refuse to) because their parents have promised them a reward once the food is completed.

These are some of the steps I follow to avoid procrastination. Let me know if these tips are helpful and also share your tools that has helped you combat procrastinate in the comment section. Do like and share if this adds value to you.

See you next week!!