Dealing With Procrastination: 4 Strategies That Actually Work (for me)

This is for all the people that resort to some sweet sweet Netflix for procrastination and need a change that makes them feel like they’re trying to improve - when you and me both know that this article is also a part of your procrastination diet. Feel ashamed.

The Fog of Uncertainty

You’ve got a very doable task, but that 1 task is actually 99 different tasks that are compiled together with instructions given to you in bulk, in one go, and now you just want to watch Netflix and down a packet of gummy bears. Why? Besides the fact that Netflix is life and gummy bears are delicious, it’s because all of that work is overwhelming and you’re trying to absorb it as one piece of work when in reality, like we just mentioned, it’s actually a compilation of a lot of small tasks.

So what’s the solution? You may have figured it out by now but I’ll say it anyway. What you need to do is to break up that task into smaller more manageable chunks. Nothing is going to be achieved by trying to eat a burger in one bite, you’ll choke.

There are numerous effective methods of breaking a large hamburger of work into small bites (I’m hungry), and the fantastic thing about these methods is that they can be applied to many different scenarios involving many different types of work.

If you’re studying and you need to get through a large textbook, this may be the easiest of them all. The textbook is split into chapters, chapters are split into sections and sections usually split into a few sub-sections. The work is already done for you. Just take it one step, chapter or section at a time. Define a goal for the study session that’s doable and definite. For example, in the next hour, I’m going to read 2 sections of the 3rd chapter and practice the example questions that are given. What just happened? The daunting task just became very tiny and doable.

Other tasks may not be neatly organised into chunks for you, so you need to split them up yourself. Some tasks can be split up randomly and completed in much the same way, as they don’t necessarily need a process. Others may need to be split up in a certain way and completed in a particular order to be effective.

Writing a memoir or blog post could be split into short paragraphs that are written out of order and depend on the thought you have at any point during the writing process. These can then be re-arranged to flow well at a later time and you can save yourself from seeing it as a huge process. Conversely, for things like starting a business, you may need to split up the tasks but then, unlike the first example, tackle them in a particular order. You don’t want to source a supplier, get a loan and brand your new gadget before knowing if there are people who want it right? Split it up and do the market research first. Either way, breaking down a task into smaller sub-tasks will undoubtedly reduce your tendency towards procrastination.

The Bait and Switch

One of the core reasons behind not starting that project or putting off that thing (that you absolutely needed to have started a month ago), is the fact that it’s just simply hard. You have too many things to do and a lot of it is difficult enough to be a deterrent, especially when you’re feeling overwhelmed like we mentioned before.

When we have this difficult thing looming over us we tend to get this subconscious fear and panic that we may not even know that we’re feeling at the time. It’s not the fact that we can’t do it that is stopping us from actually starting. It’s the fact that we need to put a significant amount of energy into completing this thing, and that doesn’t sit well with the old monkey mind.

In reality, if you could just get started, you would be on a roll… But that’s the inherent problem with procrastination isn’t it? It’s doing everything but getting started. Here’s a nice little strategy for getting started.

Let’s say you have several pieces of work to do, because who doesn’t have several pieces of work to do… You have the projects or study that you’ve broken down into chunks to make it more doable (as per our previous pro tip), and you have other projects that you’ve also been working on that are unrelated. Now. There’s the thing. The thing that you’ve been putting off since the dawn of time (relatively)… You haven’t started it but you’ve been doing some productive procrastination by working on your other project. In fact, you can spend hours on these other projects even though they are definitely not the priority right now.

Here’s what you do, you start work on one of your easy projects. As soon as you feel the deep work come into effect where you’re on a roll, you switch. You stop what you’re doing and you switch to an easy chunk of the work that you’ve been putting off. You will be surprised at how easy it will come to you. Your brain thinks it’s on a roll, which it is. You’re already in work mode, all you have to do is switch the work. Switching to the easiest part of the work you’ve been putting off (no matter how hard it is) will not only allow for an easier, procrastination suppressing transition, but it will also keep the ball rolling when you get to the harder part of the work.

The Just One Strategy

This strategy is similar to the Bait and Switch in that it’s promising the brain something easy to do but then effortlessly allowing the brain to switch into work mode, which gets you on a roll, which in turn allows you to immensely boost your productivity. We have the bait here but we aren’t switching to anything.

In this strategy, you promise yourself a guilt free ‘out’ for the price of doing one ‘x’ of work. Here’s an example. You’ve been reading a book for a month… but not really because even though it’s a fantastic book, your attention span is at an all time low and you can’t bring yourself to commit the time and energy. You feel guilt but also there’s tons of YouTube videos to suppress that guilt.

All you have to do is promise yourself that whenever you have a thought to read but can’t be bothered, you have to read 1 page. That’s it, 1 page of the book and then you can go back to what you were doing Guilt Free™. If you read one page and leave it, that’s fine, don’t feel guilty and carry on but guess what usually happens? Most of the time, you end up reading several pages, to a chapter, to multiple chapters. Why? Because you’re just simply on a roll and your brain is in work/read mode. We’re simple creatures. This works in many scenarios but I like to use it for the less risky and more optional parts of my productivity and learning.

Hardest Things First

You wake up with crippling anxiety and guilt because you know that you have so many things to do today… and those things should have been done a few weeks ago… You’ve got a nice mental list of all of it and you’ve been applying some of what we’ve mentioned previously, so you’ve got that going for you, which is nice. So what do you do? Well first you lay in bed for a while, take a long shower, have some breakfast, browse Facebook and YouTube, sit around and think about the stuff you need to do, text a friend about the stuff you need to do and on and on and on. Stop doing that, trust me. The hardest thing on that mental list, do that right away without any of the fluff in between.

The amount of satisfaction and productivity one feels after completing the hardest part of their day in the first few hours has to be one of the greatest feelings in the world. Do yourself a favour and change up that morning routine. Wake up, wash your face, have a bite to eat, get in some meditation or breathing exercises if that’s your thing but then get straight into it. If you’ve been dreading a certain project, start it. If it’s something difficult that you don’t understand, dedicate the morning to getting help for it.

This method can be used for much much more. If you need to have a conversation that you’ve been avoiding, get it done. If it’s been an e-mail that you’ve been avoiding, make it your mission to deal with that first. This will not only get the hard stuff out of the way, it will make your day extraordinarily more relaxing as the easier tasks will come to you effortlessly. It’s all downhill from here (in a positive way).

Little Note: I do understand that there are Night Owls out there that are the most productive in the evening and onwards. The same principle still applies to you, though I’d encourage you to try it in the way that I mentioned previously, you can also apply this method by starting with the hardest task whenever you choose to start working. If you start at 11:00PM start with the hardest thing anyway.

If you got some value from this and want to go even deeper, I’ve created a 5-Step Playbook to give you some clarity in life — enjoy :)

You can follow me on the things @sahkilic | I don’t particularly use twitter but I’ll post an occasional Instagram photo that you won’t like…

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Sah out.

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