Summary of Tips for Overcoming Procrastination
◾Awareness —Reflect on the reasons why you procrastinate, your habits and thoughts that lead to procrastinating.
◾Assess —What feelings lead to procrastinating, and how does it make
you feel? Are these positive, productive feelings: do you want to change
them?
◾Outlook —Alter your perspective. Looking at a big task in terms of
smaller pieces makes it less intimidating. Look for what’s appealing
about or what you want to get out of an assignment beyond just the
grade.
◾Commit —If you feel really stuck, start simply by committing to
complete a small task, any task, and write it down. Finish it and reward
yourself. Write down on your schedule or “to do” list only what you can
completely commit to, and if you write it down, follow through no
matter what. By doing so you will slowly rebuild trust in yourself that
you will really do what you say you will, which so many procrastinators
have lost.
◾Surroundings — Repeatedly placing yourself in situations where you
don’t get much done and are easily distracted– such as “studying” in
your bed, at a café or with friends – can actually be a kind of
procrastination, a method of avoiding work.
◾Goals —Focus on what you want to do, not what you want to avoid.
Think about the productive reasons for doing a task by setting positive,
concrete, meaningful learning and achievement goals for yourself.
◾Be Realistic —Achieving goals and changing habits takes time and
effort; don’t sabotage yourself by having unrealistic expectations that
you cannot reasonably meet.
◾Self-talk —Notice how you are thinking, and talking to yourself.
Talk to yourself in ways that remind you of your goals and replace old,
counter-productive habits of self-talk. Instead of saying, “I wish I
hadn’t…” say, “I will…”
◾Un-schedule — If you feel really stuck, you probably won’t use a
schedule that is a constant reminder of all that you have to do and is
all work and no play. So, if your many attempts to make a schedule have
failed miserably, make a largely unstructured, flexible schedule in
which you slot in only what is necessary. Keep track of all the time you
spend working toward your goals, tally it up, and reward yourself for
it. This can reduce feelings of being overwhelmed and increase
satisfaction in what you get done. For more see the book Procrastination
by Yuen and Burka.
◾Swiss Cheese It —Breaking down big tasks into little ones is a good
approach. A variation on this is devoting short chunks of time to a big
task and doing as much as you can in that time with few expectations
about what you will get done. For example, try spending about ten
minutes just jotting down ideas that come to mind on the topic of a
paper, or skimming over a long reading to get just the main ideas.
After doing this several times on a big task, you will have made some
progress on it, you’ll have some momentum, you’ll have less work to do
to complete the task, and it won’t seem so huge because you’ve punched
holes in it (like Swiss cheese). In short, it’ll be easier to complete
the task because you’ve gotten started and removed some of the obstacles
to finishing.
source: https://www.princeton.edu/mcgraw/library/for-students/avoiding-procrastination/
