Get Things Done!
Deal with procrastination
It is as simple as that.
Life is too short to stress about incomplete tasks. And no matter how often we finish the chores, they keep coming more frequently. In this case, if we keep doing these chores, it becomes a little less stressful. Especially when compared to a pile of stuff in our mind racing to reach on top of our to-do list.
Everything you delay would cause some disturbance in your life.
I will give you one example, I have many indoor plants, and I love them. I didn’t water them for a few days, which is typical for indoor plants. Then they start calling me, and I say to myself, “uh! It’s okay. Tomorrow morning, I will definitely water them”. And the following day, I forget, and then I again say the same thing at night. And this cycle continues for 5–6 days. Then, I started to notice a plant having wilted leaves and two plants with brown leaves. And then I kept on feeling guilty whenever I saw those plants. That is a little bit of sadness and guilt that later converts into stress and further converts to mental health.
Was it easier to just water the plants once rather than stressing about it daily when I looked at them?
We all have these kinds of small chores that take only 5–10 minutes, but we take ages to do them just because we don’t feel like doing them at that moment. Once we adapt to not delaying these quick tasks, that’s when productivity increases and things start to get done.
Once these quicker tasks are gone, then come the big projects. Projects like home renovation, preparing for an exam, planning a trip etc. Break down the bigger projects into small steps, like the agile process. Start the first stage and complete the project step by step. This way, you will see the things getting done.
Human mind behaves in a certain way. When we see things getting done, we tend to finish more. And when we see a big pile of things to be done, we procarastinate and feel so lazy to even start.
It is up to you how you control your mind. The first start is the pain, but once you start, you will be relieved that you did. Has this ever happened to you that you keep reminding yourself to send an email to get some information, but you delay it because you are either unsure about the questions, or don’t want to start the conversation? But once you do, you feel like you thought about it and wasted so many days, whereas the actual time was way less.
This is very common for everybody to procrastinate on sending emails or calling someone to get more information. I still do sometimes. But now, most of the time, I just do it to get it out of my mind as soon as possible.
It is one less thing to think about in the mountain of thoughts.
Final words:
You need to change your mindset. You need to keep repeating this to yourself “Get it done, get it done”. By this time, you should understand it is quicker to just do it rather than cribbing about it. And you get more time for yourself the sooner you get it done. There is no hack, just a Mantra to recall again and again.