HOW TO STOP PROCRASTINATING

I’m back fellow growers! And as promised, with a useful article. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m kind of sick of complaining about the holidays. And so fellow growers, the next time you hear that word holiday out of me will be in reference to an entirely different one. Now, down to business.

For a long time, and I believe I mentioned this in my first ever blog, I was the type to just pray really hard and literally sit back and wait for it to fall into my lap. For it to make itself happen. And while I believe that God had meant for us to understand that we should give it all to him and trust him to work things out, I’m pretty sure that didn’t mean sit on your ass and do absolutely nothing.

I mean, even in the Old Testament, to cross the Jordan with Joshua, the priests needed to take the first step into the water before it parted for them. In other words, God will definitely keep his word, but you need to take the initiative to start moving towards what you want, and he will open the doors and clear the way. (If it’s his will for you, of course.)

So, how do we go about getting started down the roads we are trying to travel? Well, here are some pointers:

Start by planning. Especially if it’s something you have been thinking about doing for a while. You can start by planning. Believe me, if you sit around waiting for some ceremony to happen to signal that you should begin, you’re going to be old and gray and still looking. The basic truth about these things is, it’s rarely ever a glamourous start. Often times, for me at least, it begins in the obscure reaches of my mind while I lay under my sweaty blankets feeling pathetic at being such a failure at going after said goals. It’s that moment I hit rock bottom drive-wise (I’m a very lazy person) and the axe drops in my head like, that’s it! I refuse to be a slob one minute longer! Planning is your first step. Figure out what it’s going to take and how you are going to maneuver around each part. Visualize.

Break it down. I am stuck here. I admit. Hello, fellow member of procrastinators anonymous. (I need a word, a name for us…aaah…prostars..? Rectors…??- As in like recovering procrastinators?-…Ahhh, I give up. I’m taking suggestions. Anybody?  Ah! I found it! Dawdlers!) Fellow members of Dawdlers Inc. Anonymous! My name is THEREDD and I am a recovering procrastinator. And my biggest weakness, is in this area, blowing things out of proportion. Making mountains out of mole hills.

I not only overthink things, I put them off too. And as a result, what was a simple task to complete at the beginning morphs into vicious 60 headed demon hydra that’s trying to destroy my life by eating me and turning me into a pile of stinky manure that’s no good for anything but serving as fertilizer in the form of an example for some other sorry chump to may or may not take heed of the moral of my miserable life story. Case in point, my final year project. Yeah. It’s that bad. Send help.

The thing for all of us to remember here is this. The more you put it off the harder it gets to start. So rather than agonize over the whole thing from a distance, it would be better to just take a sledge hammer to it and break into tiny crude little pieces and then deal with each of those one by one. It would be a lot less threatening.

Start. Don’t worry about it looking pretty or even organized. Heck it may even take home the prize for how not to do it at first, but you can always improve on it and make it better. And the effort and ease of improving what you have already done will be much better than if you had to do it from scratch. Make it a learning process, where every mistake you make along the way is only serving to make you better and to know how to do it right. There is such a thing as a learning curve. You get better the more you do it. Think positive!

Start with the hardest/ most unpleasant task. Remember that book I referred to in my last blog? Eat that frog! My dad always tells us that in life, those tasks you find you have to push yourself to complete always feel the best when you are done. And you find yourself walking away from it afterwards thinking that that felt good (a) and (b) sometimes realizing that you have learnt something from it you may never have learnt otherwise. So try to think of it like that if it helps. And once this is done, you have the benefit of knowing that everything you have left will be easier. So just Suck it up, hold your breath and dive in.

Time your serious time. Nothing daunts this dawdler like the prospect of extended joyless periods of labor. It’s enough to suck the sugar out of your tea, I tell you. Well, one way to remedy this is give divide your time into little time bubbles. Periods of time in which you are serious without distraction. It will be easier for you to immerse yourself into it, if you have trouble focusing for long periods, if you know there is a finish line and you can actually see it getting closer every time you look up.

Remove distractions. If you know YouTube is your Delilah, and Instagram is a siren to you, remove all temptation. Put your phone on silent, leave it in the next room, turn it off. Refuse to look at YouTube. (Can you tell im talking to myself here?) Not even your notifications. Those can wait till your breaks. YouTube is not going anywhere. And it will taste sweeter when you wait for it.

Schedule your breaks. Ooooh, fun. You know yourself. So schedule your breaks according to how much concentration you know you have. And when this time rolls around, enjoy it. Go all out on it. Make the most of it so that when you get back into your work you feel refreshed.

Motivate yourself. Give yourself deadlines and reward yourself, when you achieve various goals and set up punishments on yourself for when you slack off. The end goal itself could be a motivation in itself. For instance, that beach body I drool over every time I get into Pinterest fitness, is a big reason why I get off my ass when I do and work.

Get a partner. Misery loves company, but a problem shared is half solved. Having someone with you who is also doing something similar of their own, or even different but who is also trying to deal with it should serve to motivate you as well as provide each of you with a bungee cord of sorts. You could pull each other out of slumps and help keep each other focused on what you are trying to achieve. Sometimes, the best way to see things clearly is to hear it from someone else.

I procrastinated writing this blog. Yeah, the struggle is real. But we can do it. The year has just began. Positive energy always people, remember, attitude is everything.  🙂