“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.”
Spanish Proverb
Not all tasks of the day are stimulating, exciting or inspiring.
Some tasks in school, at work or in your business are simply less fun. But you still have to get them done.
And not get lost in Procrastination Land.
So what can you do? Here’s what I do to get a task I don’t feel much like doing all the way to done.
1. Refocus on the benefits.
Instead of focusing on how boring this task may be or how you don’t want to do it, focus on the benefits of getting it done.
So sit down for a minute. Close your eyes.
And focus on what you will get out of it. Focus on how good it will feel when you are done with it.
Oftentimes this works to get add a bit of motivation before I get started. Sometimes it doesn’t.
No matter if it does or doesn’t I don’t think about it too much because that usually just leads to more inner resistance and to making it harder to get started. Instead I make a decision and I get going.
2. Stay with the timer.
No matter if the first step above works to get me more motivated or not I take this next step.
I set my kitchen-timer for 45 minutes. I put it in another room where I cannot see or hear it. I start working on the task and focus fully on it and just it. I do no multi-tasking, just single-tasking.
For 45 minutes I dive into this task and I am fully there.
Why do I use the timer? It becomes easier to fully focus on what I am doing because I know that in 45 minutes I can take a break and go and do whatever I want. I only have to stick with this task for that long. This makes it all feel a lot lighter instead of like a heavy burden I have to carry.
This very clear separation between fully focused work and fully focused rest also reduces stress and helps me overall in my life to not get stuck in the grey zone. That is the destructive mental zone when you think about work even when you are with your family in the evening or are trying to go to sleep in your bed.
If 45 minutes is too long and you still end up procrastinating, then try 10 minute bursts of work for starters.
3. Make it more fun.
The first step might have made you more motivated to get the task done. The second step can help you to fully focus in medium-sized bursts of work while still getting a good amount of recharging rest.
A third step I often use is to make this of time of working on the task more fun. I usually do that by firing up the Spotify program on my computer and listening to some of my favorite music or just some new music while I work.
This is of course not always possible, like for example if I am proof-reading a newsletter I have written.
But it certainly helps from time to time to make the work more fun.
4. Reward yourself.
I like to mix things up and to reward myself with doing some more creative or fun work after I am done with those 45 minutes of working on the less fun task + my break. Or I may use my break to take a quick walk in the sun, watch something fun or just eat a sweet Clementine while petting one of our cats.
Small rewards like these make it easier to get started and mixing it up makes the workday more interesting and inspiring even I have a less fun task or two to get done.
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I really resonate with these ideas! By increasing your sense of motivation toward something, you’ll naturally draw more of your resources to do it. This is a powerful way to increase willpower toward something, which is often the defining factor between productivity and procrastination.
Here are a few more ways to overcome procrastination:
http://www.freedomlieswithin.com/2/post/2013/01/how-to-reverse-procrastination-with-ease.html