Beat Procrastination: How to Get Rid of Procrastination in 60 Seconds

There are many other reasons that we may find to procrastinate. But the fact is that we don’t necessarily need to dig down deep and find the reason for our procrastination. The best thing that we can do when we procrastinate is move toward just simply starting that job that we’ve been putting off.

Making one small step toward starting a task will often give us enough momentum to continue with the task. Every small step we take towards committing to the task is a positive move towards actually following the task through to completion.

One of the best ways to fight your tendency to procrastinate was found by a Russian psychologist by the name of Bluma Zeigarnik who noticed that humans tend to remember a task when it was a short task which had also been interrupted. This was coined the Zeigarnik Effect. Later, a man named Kenneth McGraw used this assumption to test participants in solving puzzles.

Once the participants were stopped halfway through, they became excited and continued to work on the complex puzzle.

What does this teach us?

It shows us that if we make an effort to start somewhere, anywhere, we are more likely to want to keep working on something.

You don’t have to start at the beginning. Maybe you are better at starting in the middle or starting at the end. Who says that you have to complete a task in order?

Just start the task. Once you make the start, there will be something at the back of your mind that pushes and drives you. If you don’t work until you finish the job, you can at least take a step back and be proud of the part that you did accomplish.

The key to using this effectively, is to work for set periods of time. If you think about the fact that this is going to take an hour to complete, you’re going to feel tired before you even start.

The first step is to tell yourself that you will work on the task for just 60 seconds.

Sit down, prepare yourself, and then begin your 60 seconds. Once you are done with 60 seconds with work, ask yourself if you feel like continuing. If you do, complete another 60 seconds. If you can, work up to completing 5 minutes of the task.

When doing this, the chances are that you were able to start a little bit of momentum in yourself to work towards the completion of the job.

Maybe starting the task dispelled the thoughts in your head that told you that the job was too hard or that you were incapable of finishing the job. If you keep doing these small bursts of your task, eventually you’ll be so involved in the task, you won’t be taking note of the time at all!

Finishing a task completely means peace of mind. This is exactly why multi-tasking is often useless and not as productive as you might think as you’re diverting your attention from one task to another without completely finishing the first task, allowing the anxiety from the incompletion to continue with you to the next task, which in turn doesn’t let you focus on the new task at hand. In order to move to something with a fully focused mind, you have to finish what you started.

Since you’ve already begun, don’t let yourself be distracted or stressed out by trying to complete everything at once. Instead, focus on that one task and then you can move on to the next one without any of those pesky intrusive thoughts and the burdensome stress of having multiple half – done tasks on hand.

You may be wondering how you can remove all of the barriers that might be blocking you from committing to the first 60 seconds of your task.

You may want to find a quiet room.

Maybe you need to remove all of your distractions.

Keep the job as simple as possible.

Don’t bring out tools and complex things unless you have to at first. Sometimes thinking about preparing and cleaning tools can make us procrastinate and not want to put effort into starting a job.

Remove all of the distractions that are around you in order to be efficient with your 60 seconds of time that you are working on a task.

If you are easily distracted by the internet or email, turn them off or disable them, or stop yourself from turning to these distractions to procrastinate further. Just simply start on your task. Overcome the initial barriers that you have by just digging in.

Tell yourself that you can accomplish your first 60 seconds and then reward yourself with something afterwards.

If you find that nothing is helping you to get over your procrastination with a particular task or project, you may want to re-evaluate whether the task is really important to you and whether you can truly commit to it.

If you are trying to write a novel and it just isn’t something that you enjoy doing, maybe you put it on the backburner and pursue something else that you are passionate about.

If you procrastinate because you are a perfectionist, learn to let it go. Perfectionism only works if you have the motivation to actually start a project.

If your perfectionism is holding you back from taking any action, then what good is it doing for you. Perfectionism that stops your actions is hurting your success.

If you don’t want to do something or if you are feeling overwhelmed, you’re not going to want to do it immediately. There is always something that’s going to be more interesting to do. Instead of doing that report that’s been sitting on your desk the whole month, you would rather gaze off into the distance at your blank wall. That’s just the way it is.

In order to get yourself out of this funk, don’t continue to tell yourself that you can’t do the work or filling your thoughts with negativity. Tell yourself that you absolutely adore this work, and you’re going to have a lot of fun doing it, and lay it on really thick, until even you believe yourself. This is absolutely necessary to do your work, and do it without thinking that there is something better that you would rather do. Don’t tell yourself that it’s not important or that you work better under pressure. Tell yourself, you have time and you can do it now.

The best thing that you can do for yourself is to prompt your own actions. Instead of sitting around listening to negative people or complaining yourself, take a step towards some type of action that will make your life better in some way. Find a purpose in your life and work toward things that inspire you.

You are reading this blog because you want to do great things with your life, right?

You want to make positive changes in your life. You want to do all of the things on your to-do list and accomplish all of the goals that you set out for yourself.

So jump out of bed in the morning with excitement. Start your day with something that inspires you. Find a few moments of peace in your day to reflect on all of the things that you did accomplish that day.

Be grateful of all of the positive things and positive people around you instead of being frustrated with all of the things still on your to-do list. Be happy with all of the little things that you do each and every day.

Our lives are busy and we have all sorts of obligations to other people. The world isn’t going to fall apart just because you took a few moments of time to yourself to work on the things that you want to accomplish.

Get rid of things in your life that bring you down and don’t inspire you, and you will find the time and the energy to tackle the things in your life that do matter to you and that will help you to reach your goals.

Don’t expend your energy trying to please a boss you don’t like and make steps toward finding a way to make money that pleases you and inspires you. If you are procrastinating on doing things that you dislike doing, maybe it is better to find someone who likes to do that part of the task instead.

With sites like Fiverr.com, you can hire someone to start your book for you. You can hire someone to do that proofreading or that formatting that you dislike doing. You can hire someone to read and respond to the hundreds of emails you get. Won’t that free up a lot of your time?

Hang out with people who inspire you. Many professional athletes find a great mentor whom can help to train them and help to encourage them through the difficult times and the hard work in order to accomplish their goals. Having inspiring people around you in the area you would like to accomplish can help to drive you toward your goals. Talk to successful people and they will give you skills that you need in order to dispel the negative self-talk that you hold in your head.

Always include time for rest and relaxation in your life when you have worked to deserve the break. Write down a daily or weekly goal calendar and just try to accomplish 3 things each day.

Don’t be upset with yourself for not accomplishing 100 things. This will lead to severe burnout and you will not be able to complete any tasks if you are tired and burnt out. Take a day to yourself and then start over the next day with your task list if necessary.

By taking a few steps toward fighting procrastination, you will be able to accomplish all of the goals that you set out to accomplish. But more importantly, be happy and be balanced in your life. Live in the now and enjoy every moment.

This is my entry for day 8 of 30 day writing challenge.

Images from Pixabay.com

Thank you for reading.