Why People Procrastinate and 7 Ways to Overcome It

Why do people procrastinate? People tend to defer, delay or put things off till the last minute because of various factors such as time perspective, personality traits, and biological factors. It is important to note that procrastination is not limited to laziness or self-control but traits like forgetfulness, getting distracted easily, disorganization, and unconsciousness of time management can be said to be reasons why people procrastinate.

There are two types of people who procrastinate:

1. Those who struggle to act on their decisions

2. Those who purposefully delay tasks.

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Here are 7 ways to overcome procrastination

1. Have a goal:
What do you want to achieve? Is it reading a book? write your book? learn a skill?
Define WHAT you want to achieve, WHY you want to achieve it and HOW you want to achieve it.

2. Organize and Prioritize your tasks:
Define and differentiate what is more important and less important. Recognize what is needed to be done NOW to achieve your goal and focus on it.

3. Attach deadlines:
Setting deadlines is very helpful. Set a deadline for the tasks that must be done. It can also keep you motivated to reach your goal easily.

4. Break tasks down into smaller steps:
List accordingly small and achievable tasks, this will help you make gradual progress to completing each one. One thing that helps with setting small tasks is the understanding of project management.

5. Tackle the easier tasks first:
Doing this will help you build up confidence in tackling other tasks at a time.

6. Get rid of distractions:
Nothing derails progress more easily than a distraction, most common distractions that add to your stress level include mobile phones, television, and noise.

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7. Self-compassion and forgiveness:
To reduce the negative effects of procrastination, you need to be kind to yourself and constantly remind yourself that you’re not lazy and unproductive when you don’t achieve your set goals.

Finally, it’s okay if you don’t achieve all your set goals due to procrastination, it only becomes a big problem when you procrastinate over everything. If you can clearly state out why you need to get things done and how to go about it, then you have taken the first step in avoiding procrastination.