Feb 25, 2019
5 important things to Avoid Procrastination
“I am too tired today. What difference would it make even if I launch my website some days later? I am my own boss here.”
These things used to pop into my mind when I was building my personal website. I was managing my college with so-called-attendance-criteria along with all the extracurricular activities that I do after my college hours.
Along with the college assignments; I kept learning the language, continued the gym, kept writing on multiple platforms, completed the courses I opted for, managed the stock market portfolio, kept reading books on the daily basis, and continued every activity that I do after my college.
It would clock around 1 AM till I got some time for building my website. I would become so sleepy till then that I used to pop a mint just to remain awake and keep working.
I didn’t even work for fixed hours daily. Sometimes I would work for 10 minutes while on other days I would stay awake till 4 AM working on the same thing. The only thing I did was to maintain the consistency.
Pritesh, how did you manage to stay up late and work at such odd hours?
As I mentioned, a mint would come for my rescue. Honestly, I have never studied after 11 AM in my complete Engineering programme. I hate to study at night. If you hand over my academic book at 12 AM and ask to study, I would probably be found dozing within a few minutes. But I say that I am a night-owl. I can surely not study or perform boring jobs at night but my productivity is highest in the night hours. The silent and cool nights automatically make you creative and romantic towards what you love. It is common for me to stay awake till 3–4 AM editing my videos or reading something or writing some blog or sometimes simply watching a documentary.
Passion and Interest are the biggest motivators. If you are passionate enough, the lesser amount of driving force is required.
But Pritesh, I do something with full energy on the first day but that energy gets reduced drastically. After a certain amount of time, the energy gets disappeared.
Procrastination is a lack of motivation for sure. We get super excited about something when we get an idea. Gradually we start getting bored with it.
In my case, the deadline plays an important role. When I was launching my website, I made a firm decision to launch it on my birthday only. By hook or by crook, I wanted my website to be ready on 18th February. That was something that boosted my energy level to heights.
Whenever I felt a bit lazy, I would remind myself, “How am I going to launch on my birthday if I keep wasting my time this way?”
Isn’t it the same way during our exam period? I didn’t even have a grumpy boss on my shoulder to monitor my work and set targets for me. It was my own deadline. Nobody asked me to do it. It came from inside.
Deadlines play an important role to avoid procrastination. We can never get lazy if we set virtual deadlines and remain serious about it.
I get great ideas but I fail to accomplish them. What to do?
Personally, I am a highly volatile person who gets distracted from boring jobs and keeps getting crazy ideas.
What comes into my rescue? A pocket diary. I have already mentioned the advantages of maintaining a daily journal in my previous blog.
Please read it as well: How a daily journal will help you improve your life?
We are humans. Don’t we love ticking the to-do lists after completing the tasks? We all love to maintain streaks. That is the reason Snapchat is so popular. Understand the value of ticking on the paper. Write down your daily goals on a paper and tick them off once you complete them.
Ticking a to-do list is the most satisfying thing ever. Convert it into a motivation.
It feels bad when we put something into a to-do list and fail to strike it down. This is a daily game for me. I frame around 10–14 tasks a day depending on the schedule which forces me to accomplish at least 8 tasks in full swing. Then the further 2–3 tasks are merely done to check out the boxes and feel better. At last, they get completed. Be it anyway. The day when all the tasks are done —it is the most successful day. This is how life works, isn’t it?
All this is fine but how to start?
Yup, this is the most challenging part of any process. TO START.
Remember how you used to ride a bicycle? The most difficult stage was to peddle from zero. Once the bicycle comes into momentum, it is far easy to maintain the velocity or accelerate the bicycle merely by peddling easily for a few times. Newton’s first law!
The exact same thing comes into the picture when you want to really do something. The most difficult part will be starting it. Probably you will keep doing something which you were already doing. Or, you will find some lame thing to do in an excuse for not starting the goal.
This happens. For that, break the process in multiple small bits and do that daily or periodically. For example, you can’t read a 500-page book within a single day if you are not a regular reader. You have to break that book into the groups of several pages. Then you will need to read in parts. A few pages per day, maybe. This is how you will completely read that book.
Similarly, break your task into several smaller parts. Start and complete each part honestly. After the summation, you will realize that you have completed a huge chunk steadily. The most important part is to Start.
Summing-up:
1] Consistency — Be it for 5 minutes a day or 9 hours a day, just do it regularly.
2] Passion — Do not expect consistency in the long term for those things which you don’t even like.
3] Deadlines — Create virtual deadlines for yourself. Give a treat to yourself in the extra time you get.
4] To-do list — All of us love ticking or striking the tasks that are written somewhere. We bound to complete a task if it is written.
5] Start — In order to finish, you have to start. No other way. Break the task into smaller parts but start.
In the end, it all depends on how seriously you want to do something. Your interest defines what you start and what you maintain.
When you go to sleep at night, nothing is more relaxing than the realization of having a productive day.
P2
