Overcome Procrastination Now!
About this course
This chapter will tie together all the information from the previous chapters. From learning about how procrastination could be bad for you to seeing how it can sometimes be a good thing for you, this chapter will explain more about how it can be used to your advantage.
To start, we will explore the idea of pushing off assignments to double your level of productivity. At the beginning of this book, it was discussed that waiting until the last minute produces hormones which can force a person to work faster. At this point, you can use the same concept to manipulate your mind into working on a large task near the deadline to complete it in less time. For example, if an assignment is going to take ten hours to complete on a normal day, it might only take seven hours to complete it when it is done close to its deadline. This is because the person who is working on it will feel rushed to complete it, and he will try to work as fast as he can to submit it on time.
- Provides Energy Boost
The first way a person can use procrastination to finish his work faster is by getting an energy boost. Energy is hard to maintain throughout the day. It will slowly decrease until it reaches the point where a person wants to procrastinate.
Every task that he accomplishes throughout the day will surely take a bit of energy from him. When he runs out of energy, he will feel forced to wait until the last minute so he can feel that sense of challenge and gain a boost of energy to finish his assignment on time. If a person uses procrastination in this sense, he will find himself going against deadlines more often. His employer will then see that he can complete assignments faster even though he waits until the last minute. Since he can prove that he can complete an assignment faster, he will be given more work, causing him to become overwhelmed.
Because of this, it is better to be careful and not to use procrastination for every assignment you have. Looming deadlines by themselves cause a lot of stress and anxiety. They cause a person to start craving for the adrenaline that causes his energy boost. This scenario is similar to where a person will question himself, wait until the last minute, and want to get that positive reinforcement from the energy boost. Even when a person has no energy left because of a long workday, the fear of not submitting an assignment on time will provide that all-important energy boost to get the job done.
- Learn How To Be Focused
The second way to use procrastination to your advantage is to learn how to become focused. While most people believe that they can focus well on any task, they still get distracted at times. To test if you are focused or not, work on a paper for two hours.
If you tried to find any videos to watch, decided to hear the next song on your playlist, or got up to stretch your legs within those two hours, the chances are great that you did those things to distract yourself from completing the assignment. When you are working on a task, the best way to stay focused is to make a firm decision on things. You can either continue working on the assignment, or you can look away for a few minutes.
These options will always exist every time you work on a task. Even for people who are used to procrastinating, it is still difficult to ignore the work that is in front of them especially when they know that there are consequences if they do not complete it in time. Knowing this can improve the focus of a person since he does not want to get punished at any point. He would rather spend a few hours experiencing stress and pain than face the consequences of not completing his assignment on time.
- Delegate & Prioritize Tasks
The third way to use procrastination in a positive way is to delegate and prioritize the tasks in front of you. Earlier in this book, it was mentioned that it is important to schedule everything that needs to be done during the day. Everyone in the workplace deals with major and minor tasks daily. When listing these tasks on a sheet of paper, it is always best to organize them from the most important to the least, also taking into account the amount of time needed to accomplish them.
Doing this will make it easier to get through the entire list. When leaving a larger assignment to the end of the day, a person can use the energy boost brought about by procrastination and use the pressure he feels to get that long assignment done in a short amount of time. Being behind schedule for an assignment will prompt you to exert maximum effort to complete it before the deadline. The moment you start to feel that you are getting close to the end and you do not have to work as much anymore, this energy boost will start to decrease.
As a result, you will feel like pushing the assignment back once again. You must create a baseline for yourself to make sure that your work gets done on time. It is important to estimate the amount of time it will take, and then sit down for that same amount of time to accomplish your task. Once you have set a baseline for yourself, it will be much easier to finish projects on or before a certain deadline.
From there, you will simply have to practice and learn to determine how long it will take to do certain assignments and how much you are able to work in a certain period. Some people might be able to sit down for seven hours straight when they work on a single project. Others might only be able to work for two hours straight. Remember that you are different from your colleagues and that you must work around your limitations to fulfill your assignments.
- Set Up A Work-Life Balance For Yourself
The last way you can use procrastination positively is to set up a work-life balance for yourself. When developing yourself as a leader for your company, procrastination will simply come naturally because there is so much that needs to be done. In this situation, a person will deal with more work than he is used to. Therefore, he will not be able to focus on some parts of his life.
For example, a small business owner might take a whole month setting up his office and making sure that his insurance cover is in place. In the same month, he will not be able to spend as much time as he would like with his family. It is important to realize that time should be set aside for every part of your life. You should dedicate time for yourself, your family, and work. It is always important to have time to yourself so you can think about the kind of person you have become.
Having lots of hobbies and raising a family while working is a hard thing to accomplish. It is not about getting one thing done or having one focus at a time.
Instead, it is more about realizing all the parts that are important to you. You should be able to spread yourself evenly when doing different tasks during the day. Doing this will create a stable balance that causes less stress on you. The best way to develop this balance is to think about what you do in a day. If you spend more time at work than with your family, then your life is out of balance.
You must realize that holding things off until the last minute will make it harder for you to strike a balance since anything can happen. At the same time, procrastination can be used to create time for yourself. Working on something at the last minute will allow you to do it faster and give you time to work on other things the next day. Take note that it is not a good thing to rely upon procrastination, but it can be used to develop a balance within your life.
Course Structure
The Science Behind Procrastination 5 Lessons
The Brain of a Procrastinator
People will always say how bad procrastination is before ever truly realizing why it happens. It is a natural approach which people rely on at the last minute. It is about how they will continually agree to take on another assignment before finishing the previous one. This is not about responsibility and whether the person can complete tasks or not. It is about wanting to take on a challenge and finish more assignments than the person next to them.
Why Do We Procrastinate?
The truth is, the action which leads to more relaxation tends to win each time. The closer a person approaches a due date, the more he begins to panic since he feels that he cannot relax as much. The moment this is felt, it is easier to keep the prefrontal cortex engaged.
The Inner Struggle In Getting Things Done
Since the hormone dopamine continues to run through the brain during these situations, it causes a person to lose his sense of control. He starts to form a battle within himself to see how much self-control he truly has. While he knows that an assignment is due soon, he also knows that the intense feeling of waiting until the last minute is just right around the corner.
The “Fight-or-Flight” Response
At this moment, the brain evaluates the choice using the “fight-or-flight” response. When it comes to choosing between doing an assignment or not, the fight response in the amygdala would choose to do the assignment at that moment.
How Procrastination Can Destroy Your Life 3 Lessons
The “Escape” Mechanism of The Brain
The layout of the brain was explained through the science of procrastination. The brain utilizes hormones when making decisions, always looking at the best outcome for a person. It does not matter whether the outcome is about resting peacefully or completing an assignment. It is about learning what the body needs at a specific moment.
The 4 Reasons Procrastination Can Be Devastating To A Person’s Life
It Causes Him To Mismanage His Time
You Can Miss Certain Opportunities In Your Life
It Ruins Your Goals And OpportunitiesIt Will Cause You To Have A Lower Self-Esteem
Manage Your Time, Manage Your Life 4 Lessons
3 Steps To Stopping Procrastination
The previous chapter covered why procrastination can be a bad addition to any person’s life. It can be a habit that can cause a major downfall, resulting in corruption within the mind. It might start with waiting to do things until the last minute, but then it all comes down to the final choice of a person.
6 Signs Of A Chronic Procrastinator
The first sign that will prove you are procrastinating is when you choose to work on low-priority tasks instead of higher-level assignments. The second sign is when you realize that you are spending the majority of the day reading emails several times over without ever starting work.
Procrastination Killer Tips For Chronic Procrastinators
If you are a person who procrastinates because you are disorganized, then the above tips which aim to stop procrastination will not apply to you. Instead, the tips that follow might work for you since they will show you how to get organized.
How Highly Successful Individuals Overcome Procrastination 6 Lessons
What Makes Them Exceptional?
The different ways on how to control procrastination in your life were brought forward. The importance of determining whether you are a procrastinator or not was discussed, also covering various points as to how you can properly manage your time.
Mike Vardy
The first person is Mike Vardy. This man is a productivity strategist and the founder of Productivityist. He overcame procrastination by simply attaching a kind of “mode” to every single task. Once he was in a certain mode, he was able to stop himself from pushing away the assignment and just do it right on the spot.
Darren Rowse
The next person is Darren Rowse, the founder of ProBlogger. He overcame procrastination by designing his own weekly schedule. He started by listing the activities which needed to be done throughout the week. Then, he organized them by determining which tasks had to be accomplished on a specific day within that week.
Erik Fisher
Up next is Erik Fisher. He is the author and productivity podcaster of Beyond The To-Do List. He found that the best way to avoid procrastination is to be ready to say “no.” Apart from doing tasks which you are able to do, it is equally important that these tasks are something you really want to do.
Tony Stubblebine
The last person is Tony Stubblebine, the CEO and corporate founder of Coach.me. He broke through procrastination by using basic meditation and by understanding that it is an obstacle that needs to be overcome. He viewed this scenario as a challenge to control his thoughts and to control what he was doing throughout the day.
Good Vs. Bad Procrastination 3 Lessons
Leveraging Procrastination – How Procrastination Can Help You Get Things Done FAST
From learning about how procrastination could be bad for you to seeing how it can sometimes be a good thing for you, this chapter will explain more about how it can be used to your advantage.
Bad Procrastination
Procrastination becomes a bad thing when it causes a person to become more stressed than he was before. This will start to happen when he has too many assignments to work on and not having enough time to complete them before their deadlines. With a scenario like this, it is natural for a person to think if he is still doing the right thing.
Don’t Be Afraid to Say NO! 4 Lessons
Be Bold – Say ‘No’ To Worthless Activities
The most important factor that will help you to avoid procrastination is not to allow yourself to fall into the habit in the first place. A person must be able to determine how much he has to do and how much he can take on in a day. While scheduling the tasks of the day can help, there is a limit to what he can do.
The Death of a “YES-man”
Often times, people tend to be the “Yes-man” to others and are simply too afraid to turn down their offer even though they knew that they were being taken advantage of, or what others are demanding them to do is a total waste of time.
Be Honest To Yourself
Learn to be more completely honest to yourself before you agree to something. Always ask yourself, “Does this serve my higher purpose?”, and answer honestly whether it’s a Yes or No. Decide, and don’t be afraid to say ‘No’.
Conclusion 2 Lessons
Read This: This Book Was Written to Create Awareness
This book was written to create awareness on procrastination and to educate people on how it can be used in life, how it develops in the mind, and the reasons people have it.