How To Stop Procrastinating

In today’s newsletter, I’m going to teach you how to overcome procrastination.

Overcoming procrastination allows you to achieve your wildest ambitions. Allows you to create the life that you constantly dream about.

Unfortunately most people never overcome procrastination. The resistance towards doing the task is greater than the desire to sit down and do the work.

You’re told that they need more discipline. That you need to use willpower to overcome procrastination.

Yet not matter how hard you try, you still struggle to sit down and do the work.

Willpower isn’t enough to overcome procrastination

You’ve been struggling with procrastination because:

• Corporations profit off of you being distracted. They spend millions to find ways to keep you on their platform longer so that they can make more money.

• You don’t have clarity on what you should be working on and how to achieve your goals.

• You don’t know how to break down large tasks into bite sized chunks

• Never adding any urgency to your tasks. Always thinking that you can always finish it tomorrow or next week.

This all sounds daunting but don’t worry. This newsletter is all about how to overcome procrastination.

Here's how, step by step:

Step 1: Audit your environment

The easiest way to change your behavior is to change your environment.

For example, if you want eat healthier you have two options:

1. Rely on willpower

2. Remove all junk food from you home

Option #2 is the best strategy to help you avoid junk food consistently. The same thing happens with distractions.

If you’re constantly surrounded by distractions you’ll be more likely to get distracted.

Here is how you can audit your environment:

1. Pull out a pen and paper and write down every single item in your workspace

2. Beside each item put a (+) if it helps you focus and a (-) if it does the opposite

3. For each item with (-) think about how you can either remove it completely or add friction to it so it becomes harder to indulge in distractions.

After doing this exercise, I began to leave my phone in a different room while I worked and noticed a big difference.

You also want to do an audit of your digital environment. Which apps or websites do you spend a lot of time on? Do they help you focus? Or are they a distraction?

Use an app like one sec to block all distracting websites and apps.

Step 2: Create clear outcomes

One of the biggest reasons people procrastinate is because they lack clarity on what they should be doing.

When we don’t know what we should be working on, it becomes a lot easier to procrastinate.

Each time you sit down to work, write a goal. Make it realistic. Especially if you struggle with procrastination.

If you have an essay you need to finish, it’s unrealistic to finish it all in a single sitting.

But you might be able to complete the outline. Or finish the first few sections.

If the tasks feels daunting, think of how you can break it down into smaller chunks that are more manageable.

Once you have a clear outcome you’re after it becomes a lot easier to focus.

You also know when to stop working. When you can reward yourself and take a break.

Which is just as important.

Step 3: Warm up

Now that you have an environment that is free of distractions. You’re clear on what you need to do. It’s time to sit down and work.

When it comes to doing work most people completely overlook the warm up process.

An athlete doesn’t just show up on game day and start playing at full intensity.

They take time to stretch and warm up. So that their bodies can perform optimally.

The same applies with mental exertion.

When you sit down to work it takes 20-30 minutes for your brain to warm up. This is the hardest part of your working session. Also known as the struggle phase:

Most people never reach flow because when they’re in the struggle phase they fall prey to distractions and begin procrastinating.

It’s a never ending cycle of struggle phase and procrastination.

Learn to sit with the struggle. Give it 20-30 minutes for your brain to warm up. You’ll find that once you’re able to push through the 30 minutes the work becomes more fun.

Step 4: Set up time restrictions

One of the best purchases I’ve made is a timer. When I’m going to work on a specific task, I set a timer based on how long I think I will finish it.

This helps gamify your work because now you’re against the clock so you’re less prone to distractions.

This also takes advantage of the parkinson’s law which states that work expands to fill the time available for completion.

So the less time you assign to a task (within reason) the less time you’ll spend on it.

Setting up time restrictions can help you get more done with less time.

That’s all for this week.

I will see you next Saturday.