This tendency to inaction can be very limiting. Luckily, there are strategies to wake up and take on the challenges.
For this reason, it is sometimes called the “I’ll do it tomorrow syndrome” , and although it is not in itself a disorder or a mental illness, it is capable of producing many headaches in the medium and long term.
In this article we will see a series of keys to not procrastinate; strategies that you can use on a daily basis to predispose yourself to take seriously your responsibilities or the goals you have set for yourself and not constantly postpone them.
- It may interest you: “Mental strength: 8 keys to being psychologically strong”
Key ideas for not constantly procrastinating
These are recommendations based on principles that psychologists use in our sessions to help people with procrastination problems. Following them is not the same as going to therapy, but they can be very helpful.
1. Understand the scope of the problem
First of all, you need to recognize that you have a problem with that tendency to leave for another time tasks that need to be resolved as soon as possible.
Therefore, spend at least 10 or 15 minutes reflecting on the areas of your life in which this is negatively affecting you ; Preferably, take notes about the conclusions you reach. For example, you can write about your career, your household responsibilities, your sleep schedule, or even your self-care tasks.
2. Strengthen our self-esteem
Secondly, you need to consider whether part of the excuses you usually make for not starting tasks when they are due have to do with low self-esteem, that is, with believing that you will not be able to adequately face those responsibilities. If so, identify what kinds of negative thoughts about yourself make you procrastinate for fear of failure, and once you’ve done that, put them into perspective, looking for alternative ways of looking at things.
For example, you can propose to act as someone who seeks to argue against those beliefs , looking for reasons why day to day shows that in reality you would be capable of carrying out what you have to do (a university career project , a training program, preparing for an exam, etc.).
3. Establish a time and place to work
This is very important: you must define in advance where and when you will dedicate yourself to that task. Also, make sure the space is free of distractions , such as TVs on, chocolates stored in a nearby cabinet, smartphones making notification sounds, etc.
4. Create engagement by talking to someone
To increase your commitment to the task, tell someone that you are going to dedicate yourself to working on it . In this way, having a “testimony” that you have proposed to dedicate yourself to that responsibility, it will be more difficult for you to fall into the temptation to postpone it.
5. Divide tasks into small goals
To make it more attractive to work on the task that you would normally leave for another time, divide it into small sub-tasks . Thus, you will have more incentives, and you will also notice them closer in time.
6. Apply forms of self-motivation
Knowing how to self-motivate is one of the keys to knowing how to guide our behavior towards goals , and it consists of finding ways to give ourselves more reasons to dedicate ourselves to that task as soon as possible, and committing ourselves to its completion in a consistent and unremitting way. unnecessary interruptions.
For example, you can aim to give yourself a small reward every time you’ve spent about 9 hours working on that task, or once every three days, etc. The most important thing is that you are able to establish these sources of self-motivation beforehand and define very well when and under what circumstances you can enjoy those pleasant moments, so that you do not fall into the trap of rewarding yourself for no reason (which would go against of the logic that we must implement).
Basically, at this point you will have already applied a self-motivation strategy: by telling someone that you are going to carry out the task that you want to avoid postponing, you will have increased your list of incentives to do it as soon as possible, so as not to miss your word.
7. Clearly establish rest periods
Another way to make it easier for yourself when it comes to not procrastinating is not to be very ambitious with the periods in which you intend to work non-stop , because if not, it will be easier for you to find the task intimidating and not dare to start it. For this reason, try that, especially at the beginning, the hours of work without interruption do not exceed 55 minutes, and that after this time you dedicate yourself to resting for about 5 or 10 minutes.
8. Detect trap thoughts
Procrastination is maintained, at least in part, in self-sabotaging thoughts that arise in our consciousness and suggest ways to stop having to face the unpleasant feeling of having pending tasks. That is: instead of guiding us towards the resolution of those objectives, they guide us towards distractions that allow us to stop thinking about those problems to be solved.
For this reason, another key to not procrastinating is to be clear that these thoughts are going to come our way , and that we must be able to recognize them as such to nullify the influence they have on us. To help yourself, you can write down all those that you detect in a small notebook, so that it will be easier to recognize them on future occasions, and you will also adopt the mentality of proceeding with caution when making decisions about how to manage your time.
Are you looking for psychological support to lead a more orderly life?
Many of the problems that patients complain about when they come to psychotherapy are caused in large part by the inability to manage time well.
For this reason, psychologists have experience in recognizing these kinds of problems and in helping people overcome them, gaining performance and quality of life. If you are interested in having professional help to be able to definitively defeat procrastination, you can contact me.
Bibliographic references
- Gendler, T.S. (2007). Self-Deception As Pretense. Philosophical Perspectives. 21: PP. 231 – 258.
- Macan, T.H. (1994). Time management: Test of a process model. Journal of Applied Psychology. 79 (3): pp. 381 – 391.
- Steel, P. (2010). The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done. Canada: Random House Canada.
- Tice, D.M.; Baumeister, R.F. (1997). Longitudinal Study of Procrastination, Performance, Stress, and Health: The Costs and Benefits of Dawdling. Psychological Science. 8(6): PP. 454 – 58.
To the classic question “what do you do?” I always answer “basically I am a psychologist”. In fact, my academic training has revolved around the psychology of development, education and community, a field of study influenced my volunteer activities, as well as my first work experiences in personal services.
