As a freelancer, I am always trying to learn new ways to stay productive. It can be difficult to push through the mindless distractions that arise everyday. These distractions are the worst when you know you need to start a project, but keep finding yourself in the kitchen eating something else…again.
Here are my 5 WORST Procrastination Habits
- Bringing too much work to bed.
Sometimes we overestimate how much we can get done in a few minutes. We may try to cram too many tasks into a short block of time- leaving it impossible to completely finish any single item on your “to-do” list.
My night time routine involves: emails, writing a blog post, checking stats and then sleep. That seems like a lot because it is. I procrastinate giving myself a good night’s sleep by overloading myself with pre-bedtime tasks. I am not doing myself too many favors, because every other area of my life suffers when I am too tired the following day. - Bringing must-do tasks with me into an impossible situation.
Similar to the last point, a form of procrastination is to over-lap important tasks that equally need your attention. This can be something like leaving the task of signing up for that new web service until you are sitting in the waiting room for your dental appointment. Except that the room is too noisy, and you aren’t able to get a good WiFi signal, so the whole mission gets aborted because you just are not up to it. The task gets put on the back burner, and your mind is more likely to become anxious about its “in progress” status. - Relying too much on my memory.
We often rely too much on our memories. There are volumes of scientific research that prove how fickle the memory of a human is; and so, if you REALLY want to remember that person’s name, or the date of your Niece’s school recital, you should write it down. Telling yourself that you will “just remember” to do something, is a surefire recipe for disaster. Why not use technology to set reminders, flag things for follow up, and create to-do lists? You will remember what is required better if you give yourself a prompt by keeping track of it in a written form. - Setting goals that require resources beyond my current reach.
Sure I would love to re design my office. Sure that $4000 work space would look great underneath all of my work. These are amazing ideas, if I have $4,000 to spend on new decor. Unfortunately, if I don’t have $4000 then that goal is going to have to be changed to suit my resource level in the here and now.
To quote Kevin Hart: stay in your lane! - Not setting important meetings for early in the day.
I hate 4:00 pm meetings. I think that only the least functional team leaders set meetings for this time of day. Firstly, by 4:00 pm my ability to sort information is heavily in decline as my best hours for sorting is within 3-4 hours of waking up.
Secondly, 4:00 p.m. is the hour of the day when people can be very irritable. I remember that 4:00 p.m. was always around the time when parent-teacher meetings took place when I was a child in school…and I would invariably get in some sort of trouble at those meetings.
In my mind: very few positive things happen at 4:00 p.m.
What do you use as procrastination methods? Do you find that procrastination eventually leads to productivity? Leave a comment in the section below, and thanks so much for stopping by.
Stephanie
Stephanie Konu 