6 Simple Habits for Productive Procrastination

Stop wasting time and rest productively.

PROCRASTINATING is an invisible force that keeps you away from doing what you need to do. Reading this article won’t give you an answer on how to stop procrastinating. You will learn how to keep doing that, but productively. I’m going to walk you step-by-step through productive procrastinating.

Professional psychologists will try to teach you some strategies to eliminate procrastination and massively increase productivity by force. I am not a professional psychologist, but from my life-changing experience, I can tell you one thing. There is no way to eliminate procrastination. Never was, never will be.

However, this doesn’t mean we must be losing time every day. It means, that you need to accept the fact that there is no way to keep being focused all day without any distractions. So where’s the hope if we’re doomed? Well, we can use distractions as our allies and keep procrastinating productively without wasting time and effort on fighting it.

The System

60 minutes intervals are perfect for keeping focus. 15 minutes of focus, 5 minutes of rest, times three equals 60. 15 minutes to rest in every hour of keeping the focus on your task gives you the perfect time to do something that will move your attention somewhere else and let your mind and body rest. I highly recommend using the “Forest” — the app you can find in AppStore to help you with creating and managing the cycle.

Scrolling Instagram or watching Tik Tok is not a good idea because it makes you waste time. We are here to find activities before and after focus sessions which will help you relax your body and brain, until the next session.

Relax your back, breathe, drink water. And more.

Open a window to let the fresh air in, and use this time for:

1/ Hydrate — staying hydrated during the day is very important to feel good. Keep your drink in the room where you keep focus, but not in the reach of hand. Why not?

2/ Move around — Do some stretches or basic yoga exercises. Sitting much in the same position is bad not only for your body, but also for your mind.

Stand up in the sun, raise your hands. Close your eyes, and breathe deeply. Relax your breath. Send your thoughts through the body. Scan your body for all inconveniences that you can feel. Try to ‘transport’ oxygen to all cells in your body, especially to those parts where you feel pain.

3/ Meditate — open your favorite mindful app and meditate for 5 minutes, or if you don’t like guidance in meditation, close your eyes, do a body scan, and feel your surroundings.

4/ Learn a new language — spend this time to study. Open your language App — I recommend Busuu! — and do a few lessons. Language applications like Busuu! are built in 2 minutes per lesson system, which is perfect to fill your free time between tasks.

5/ Reorganize your desk — move things around, clean up a little. Make the impression that you have changed the work environment. Your brain may catch this as new activity and lets you focus even more.

6/ Eat something delicious — a delicious snack during the break may change everything. Try banana Nutella milkshake. Or go to Starbucks and order a big caramel frappuccino. You know what, I’ll be right back ;)

When you have a system, you’re one step closer to become friends with your procrastinating issues. After a few sessions of concentrating, you will notice that your time was spent more effectively. You used your time properly, and you needed it less to achieve your goal than outside the system. Keep it for a few sessions to start being familiar with a new system of focus. Good luck.

Oh. About frappuccino, remember — order a big one.