How do you stop yourself procratinating?

Question

I'm a hugely productive person normally, but I can get a week occasionally where I procrastinate massively - or I get things done really slowly and my prioritisation is terrible. I get caught up in doing 'busy work' rather than the most important things.

Maybe I should just respect my natural rhythm - as I say, usually I'm pretty focused so it doesn't cause me any major problems - but I always feel bad at the end of a less productive couple of days o.

What do you do when you're feeling like this? Any tools I could try when I'm not feeling focused?

Allison Braund-Harris · Accepted Answer

I wish there was a magic serum for non-procrastination, but my best method is to put meetings on the calendar with people and say "I'm going to talk to you about XYZ when we have this conversation"— the pressure of me telling them that we'll be discussing XYZ forces me to actually do it.

dunya yavas · Answer

What worked best for me was being accountable to other people. If you have teammates, tell them when you are going to deliver your work. We let ourselves down without any issues, but we tend to not let other people down. If you are working solo, you can check Dive for free.

Vio Vanica · Answer

If it is a task that overwhelms me I try to have someone who keeps me accountable for it. If I feel in the low state energy (usually after lunch) I use MyFocusSpace, to match me with someone who wants to work alongside me (the peer pressure motivates me here). For the rest of the tasks, I write them down the night before and try to prioritize them.

Jessica Gregson · Answer

@dunya_yavas Hey Dive looks super cool, will check that out.

Mayank Gupta · Answer

Talk to your team and work with them. Ask them for help or just be accountable to your team. Make small tasks and complete them.

Sasha S · Answer

Creating a daily focused target list really helps

Lakshmi · Answer

Figure out why I am procrastinating and decide if it should be done. If the decision is yes, then mark a deadline and get it out of the way. Otherwise, it stays in the back of the head and leaches energy.

Jessica Gregson · Answer

@killshiva How do you do that? Breaking it down? Making the task more fun?

Isabel Nyo · Answer

I procrastinate when I’ve too much freedom. That’s why I set goals, deadline and structure in place for my productivity.  You can check out screenshots of my product on PH, The Creator System, on how that looks like.

Answer

@jessica_gregson1 I start by breaking the task down to the absolute smallest unit and go from there. I wouldn't say it is more fun, but it gets things done.

soylakate · Answer

Consider TMetric.
It's an app for time and productivity tracking to help you stay focused and organized. I use this tool too, and enjoy looking into the time spent and analyzing where my time goes :) 
Still, we are all humans and we cannot work each day at our productivity peaks as robots. It's ok to take breaks, to procrastinate a bit since you know you'll do the work anyway, and slowing down won't affect your results eventually.

Prateek Mathur · Answer

The regret minimization framework by jeff bezos gave me a kick up my behind. That was all I needed to stop procrastinating and start doing.

Jessica Gregson · Answer

@hardlyallison That's a good tip. We're a really team so making yourself accountable to colleagues is tricky sometimes. TBH I could even so this with my husband and it would make me spend the time researching the topic and doing the work.

Answer

I like to make it as easy as possible to do something than it is to not do it.

Rashmi Gupta · Answer

good question, I am looking for answer too!!

How do you stop yourself procratinating?

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