7 Ways to Fight Procrastination As a Programmer

Procrastination, the evil habit every programmer wanted to get rid of.

Young man procrastinates, covered in sticky notes, work overload. Source: Unsplash Luis Villasmil

As a programmer, we often find ourselves wandering around the internet, from social media to YouTube to some unrelated stuff like reading a random tech article, surfing endlessly on Amazon and Shopee, Googling weird stuff, etc.

Procrastination usually happens due to:

Perfectionism — You afraid to code because you keep on planning to make sure it will be perfect during execution.
Disorientation— Too many things, too little time. Programmers often lose focus because there are a thousand things to take note of during coding.
Heedlessness — Unconsciously putting attention, mind, and focus into auto-drive mode.
Short-term Pleasure — Searching for instant gratification like entertainment with no long-term benefit. Short-term pleasure, long-term pain.

Enough with all the causes, let’s look at how we can fight procrastination by tricking our focus, thoughts, and minds.

1) “Just do one more” Mindset

My favorite quote from my mentor, Wesley Chan.

“Just Do One More” — By Wesley Chan

The mindset is to convince yourself to do one more thing, despite:

How tired you feel about daily tickets to solve; just solve one more ticket.
Thinking about how many thousands of lines of code you need to write; just write one more line of code.
How unprepared are you to start coding; just write one more line of code.
The task is too hard to accomplish; just complete one more task.
How stressful you are today; just do one more thing.

The logic behind JDOM is to let yourself entirely focus on one and only one thing and get it done. Our brain is like a single thread in a processor; we can only focus on one thing at a time. JDOM method isolates other unrelated things and allows your brain to unleash the power of focus. If you are interested to know more, feel free to watch his explanation in this video.

2) Looping 25 Minutes Sprint with 3 Minutes Break — Pomodoro Technique

Breakdown of Pomodoro Technique formula is as below:

25 minutes work -> 3 minutes break -> 25 minutes work -> 3 minutes break -> 25 minutes work -> 3 minutes break

Multiple systematic boosts of productivity with a short break in between will help instill a sense of urgency. A sense that you need to achieve a small and easy task out in this short 25 minutes sprint.

Place the YouTube timer in another device in front of you.

Make sure the timer is watching you too!

Discipline yourselves to only do work during the 25 minutes, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Tiktok, no Instagram whatsoever. Treat the timer as your coach. Respect it as well.

You can choose the interval length suit you the best; it can be 20 minutes sprint, 5 minutes rest, or 30 minutes sprint, 10 minutes rest.

During the 3 minutes break, ease yourself with some rest, toilet break, pick up some snacks, and drink some water/coffee. It is proven that a guided timer minimizes burnout as your mental capacity only focuses on that 25 minutes sprint, but not the whole 480 minutes workday.

You will be surprised how short is 25 minutes when you are working on something instead of wasting time surfing social media and losing many “25 minutes” in a day.

3) Must Set a Deadline in Jira/Trello

A human’s brain is no different than an animal's brain. It is made for doing something fun and easy. If no deadline exists, be prepared to see the tasks stuck in your checklist forever while your brain diverts yourself to something fun and easy.

Imagine if you have 50 pending tasks to be executed this week. Without the help of a checklist and deadline, your mind will be wandering around each task, sometimes multitasking, getting distracted, forgetting which one you are working on, and getting nothing done at the end of the day. How frustrated is that?

Keep the Jira/Trello tabs open to remind you about:

Which task are you currently working on?
When is the deadline for each task?

This practice might help you keep focus and create a sense of urgency to complete the task, especially when approaching the deadline.

I have both Jira and Trello as my checklist. Jira is for project-related tasks, and Trello is for personal tasks outside of any project scope.

4) Reward yourselves after completing the task

Always prepare a reward for yourselves after the task is complete. It can be as simple as treating yourselves to a good meal or an hour of PS5 gameplay. This reward indirectly incentivizes you to focus and finish the task as soon as possible.

Or in other words, the rewards are waiting for you at the end of your productive day.

5) Interrupt Your Brain Autopilot by Counting Down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Do you remember that a teacher or a leader always uses a countdown method to gather everyone instantly in a queue or something in school or a camp? Somehow everyone stops what they are doing and focuses on instruction commanded by that person. Isn’t it amazing?

Mel Robbins introduces this method. Watch her YouTube video below for a deeper explanation.

The idea is to initiate count down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 whenever you feel your brain is currently autopiloting to some useless activity.

Within this 5 seconds countdown window, your brain's frontal cortex will be activated, and you are in control. Quickly command yourself to take the leap and back to what you suppose to do.

6) Start your day with a Meeting, Discussion, or Brainstorming

Personally tried this, somehow my productivity increases when I start my day with some interaction with my colleagues or clients. This particular action might trigger your visual, auditory, and creative side of the brain needed for communicating.

Start your day by communicating with your team also, enhance everyone’s direction and clarity on what they need to do. Have a try on this and let me know what do you think?

7) Prepare A Conducive Work Scene and Setup

A software engineer was enjoying his takeaway coffee with music. Source: Unsplash Lala Azizli

Our surroundings easily influence our minds. Therefore, it is essential to put in some effort to prepare for a conducive work scene and setup. You can:

Put on your noise-canceling headphone or earbuds.
Turn on your favorite Spotify Lofi music or play a Coldplay song.
Prepare your favorite coffee or tea.
Get a good ergonomic chair, laptop, keyboard, and eye-care monitor.
Disable notification for social media and communication apps.

Wrap Up

Sometimes, I still procrastinate and forgot about what I should and waste countless precious days and time. I decided to write this down, read this from time to time, to remind myself about getting rid of procrastination.