How To Stop Yourself From Procrastinating Work, Chores, And Everything In Between

Working on a project, or knowing you have to do a bunch of things around the house, can bring out the worst in people. They don’t turn into monsters with no feelings, they just refuse to get the work done. We are all guilty of it. But there are ways that you can avoid the procrastination that has found itself in your mind.

Figure out what your task or project requires of you

Before you even think about getting the task completed, you first want to make sure that you know exactly what the task is asking of you. You want to go through all of the steps that you think you will need to make in order to get this project or task finished. It is going to look like a lot of work when you are looking at it from this angle, but it won’t look like much work for long. Learn what the task is and what it requires of you, and move on to the next step.

Section it out into smaller parts

In order to get the task done without thinking it is going to take forever, or overwhelming your brain with the amount of work that it is going to take, you want to make sure that you set your task out in sections. If you are doing chores around the house, tell yourself that you are only going to mop the bathroom, and then you will do the dishes before mopping the kitchen. This gives you a set direction on how you are going to do things.

If you go into a project for work or a chore for home looking at the whole project, you are going to feel stressed and you won’t get anything done. Put your work into sections to make it easier to manage. Don’t stress yourself trying to get everything done at the same time. Jump between tasks to get them done.

Work on one part at a time

Once you have your project or task figured out, and you have split it into sections, you want to forget all of the other tasks exist. The only thing that should have your attention now is the task that you are currently focusing on. You want to get to the point where you don’t even remember the other parts of the task when you are working on the current section. If you don’t remember the other parts, they can’t stress you out. Don’t pay attention to how much you have gotten done or how much you have left. Just work on what you are currently working on and deal with the rest of it later when the time comes.

Take a break between sections if you need to

If your work seems to be too much, it is always okay to take a small break between sections. This is another reason why breaking your work into parts is a great idea. You are never forced to work on the whole project at once. You can work on a single part and, when you are finished, you can move to the next part or take a break. You won’t ever have to worry about taking a break in the middle of the project and forgetting what it is that you were doing or were planning to do. Breaks are very common when you have a big project, don’t stress yourself out if you need to take a small one to gather your thoughts before continuing on your work.

Don’t think too hard about the whole project

When you are setting yourself up and breaking the project into groups, don’t worry about the amount of sections there are for you to do. This will cause you to still think of the project as a whole. You want to break it into pieces and forget about the bigger picture. While in most cases, it is good to look at the bigger picture. When you have a habit of procrastinating things, you want to forget about how all of this is going to come together. You will find that work gets done much faster when you aren’t worried about the bigger stuff, and instead focus yourself on the smaller stuff.

Listen to relaxing music while you work

If you find it is difficult for you to keep your focus, even when breaking things down as much as you can, you can always bring in the help of music. It doesn’t have to be something classical. You just need something that will help you focus. If you focus best when there is a podcast playing in the distance, then make sure that your favorite podcast is on and let your mind work without thinking. This will help you get a lot more work done in a short amount of time. You won’t even realize that you are working until the project is done.

Focus for at least 10 minutes at a time

Breaking things into sections work a lot, but sometimes you need a little extra help to not stress out your brain when you are getting things done. If you find yourself thinking about the amount of work that you have sitting in front of you, stop yourself from the panic by giving yourself a 10 minute clock. Tell yourself that you are going to work for 10 minutes. If you still don’t feel like working after doing it for 10 minutes, take a 10 minute break and go back for another 10 minutes. It will give you a chance to think about your activity and what is left for you to do.

There is a very good chance that by the time those 10 minutes have passed, you will be in the zone and no one will be able to stop you from working.

Just follow along with these steps and you will see that the procrastination that you are facing isn’t as bad as it seems. You just need to know how to work around it and help your brain not stress over the bigger projects.