5 Genius Solutions To Every Procrastination Problem

 

Sometimes it’s genuinely hard to concentrate and we often find ourselves getting distracted and wasting time. I’m certainly guilty of that. Instead of meeting a deadline, I could get distracted by watching a video on YouTube and I’ll get sucked into a never-ending void.

Follow these fixes and banish your time wasting problems!

The problem: Getting sucked into your phone

Ok, I think I speak for all of us when I say our phones are a major distraction. Unless your job revolves around you being on your phone all day long, get off it! You’ll only get distracted and end up sending a few pointless tweets, liking 20 photos on Instagram and sharing a video of a meme on Facebook.

The solution: Apps like forest turn ignoring your phone into a game. Whenever you need to focus, you simply plant a tree. The tree takes 30 minutes to grow. 30 minutes of doing nothing with your phone. If you leave the app your tree will die. It’s a great way to limit your phone usage and once you have that lush forest to look at, you feel pretty productive!

The problem: You can’t stick to deadlines

If you have a deadline to meet. Make sure you meet them. Don’t cut corners, whether you’re in college or work in an office, if someone asks you to complete a piece of work on time you have to meet them. It can be difficult, though, if you’re always asking for extensions you need to seriously overhaul your mindset.

The solution: Set yourself a separate deadline, connect with your work. Most of us have an apathetic attitude to the workload until the week leading up to it because we’re responsible for it ourselves. Tip one would be to ask your teacher/course leader/boss/supervisor to give you an earlier deadline and expect to see the work. Of course, they’re busy so they don’t even have to actually look at it before the deadline, just asking for it will get you in the mood to hand that work in early.

The problem: You have no plan to tackle everything you have to do 

You’re great with deadlines, but you just have too much to do and you start feeling overwhelmed – the first hint of a burnout is coming and you never relax these days.

The solution: Take it one step at a time. Write every single thing you need to do by a certain deadline in a deadline and then go over it and give yourself a realistic time frame to do it. Even if you have to leave some tasks until Friday or next week, if you can do that, do it. Apps like Wunderlist help you chop down big tasks and, every time you complete something you get a satisfying ding!

The Problem: You rush everything

Ever heard of quality over quantity? I find when you try to rush things, you begin to second guess the quality of your task. Cue the procrastination.

The solution: I know this sounds slightly weird, but hear me out. If you take your time with the task at hand, you’re more likely to create better content. Take a deep breath and start over. Taking your time with something reduces unnecessary stress. So when we say be realistic with how much time you can dedicate to a task, also be realistic with how much time you should dedicate to it.

The problem: Your emails stress you out

There is nothing worse than trying to complete a task and then suddenly another 5 tasks come through to your inbox. And the more emails that pile up, the more stressed you get. It’s so much easier to just put off replying for a week (or two!).

The solution: Sign out of your emails, take a step back and assess your workload. Having your emails open all the time throughout the day is a great way to go off-track. You can only do one thing at a time so to avoid stress, don’t look at your emails until your previous task is complete. The Boomerang extension allows you to schedule emails to come back to you when you’re ready for them. Dedicate five minutes a day to your emails and boomerang all those in your inbox to hit you during that time slot.

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