How to Stop Procrastination and Move towards Action

We've all been there - working on everything except the thing that we really should be doing. Procrastination is a challenge that we have all faced at one time or another. But for some people, procrastination can be an endless loop where you keep putting things off, feel bad about it, and then put things off some more? How to stop procrastination can be difficult without targeted strategies, with statistics suggesting that 20% of adults are chronic procrastinators (Harriot & Ferrari, 1996).

Often, when I work with procrastinators they think they are lazy or have bad time management or have some nasty character flaw. But procrastination is not laziness or poor time management – it's an emotional regulation problem. So, when you procrastinate, you're actually choosing to avoid negative emotions associated with that big, bad or boring task, rather than avoiding the task itself. It is this distinction that is crucial for developing effective strategies to beat procrastination.

How to Stop Procrastination: The Big, the Bad, the Boring

Procrastination has three main effects on your life - it reduces your wellbeing, strains your relationships, and results in lost productivity and dollars.

Often overcoming procrastination starts with understanding why we procrastinate , and then applying the right technique. We can procrastinate for a number of reasons, which include perfectionism, fear of failure, and other common causes such as burnout, a lack of clarity, poor task managemont and neurodivergence. 

If you think about the things that you procrastinate on, they are likely to be come in three flavors - BIG, BAD or BORING tasks. Often identifying the task as big, bad or boring can help you to develop actionable strategies tied to that specific cause.

1. Overcome Procrastination on 'The Big' tasks

Big and daunting tasks

The following procrastination techniques are aimed at things you're putting off because they're just too big. You know, those tasks where you never seem to get a big enough chunk of time to tackle them.

I have found that clients who are postponing on these types of tasks benefit from the following practical strategies:

Strategy #1: The 10-Minute Rule

Nike says 'Just Do It' but for the procrastinator it is best to 'Just Start It'. Often for the procrastinator, the toughest part is to start the task. If you find that your resistance to starting is high then commit to only the first 10 minutes. Here's how I apply it.

Strategy #2: Time Blocking

Clients find this great for actions no more than 2 hours in length. Simply dedicate specific blocks of time to important tasks in your calendar. It is like giving your schedule a VIP pass to your most procrastinated activity. By time blocking you give yourself the exclusive space in your calendar to action the task.

Within the workplace, time boxing can be great for people who

• procrastinate on emails. By setting designated times to check emails and setting up email templates for common responses.
• procrastinate on projects. By creating a detailed project plan and then then breaking it down into smaller parts and the assigning those smaller parts to be timeboxed in your calendar can be a great way to overcome procrastination.

Strategy #3: How to stop procrastination with 'The 3D Approach'

Interval training for the time management world. The 3D approach turns you into a success junkie carving out doable steps that build a record of accomplishment and gets more stuff done. Here's how to apply it.

2. Overcome Procrastination on 'The Bad' tasks

Procrastination on scary tasks. Photo by Niklas Hamman

What do I mean by 'The Bad' tasks, I mean those tasks that raise your heart rate and make your palms sweat.

Giving a speech, having a tough conversation, starting a project that pushes you out of your comfort zone. Fear of failure and anxiety are powerful emotions and our brains are wired to avoid pain and discomfort. Here are some strategies to combat these scary tasks.

Strategy #1: How to stop procrastination using the MCII technique

The steps Mental Contrasting and Implementation Intentions (MCII) are to dream big and then contrast this with what is standing in your way. Then use implementation intentions (which are basically if-then plans) to set the game plan for how you do the task. Here is the science and some ideas on how to implement MCII

Strategy #2: Watch your pick-up lines

Have you ever made excuses that justify procrastinating? Some common excuses are "I am afraid I will fail" or "I'm not good enough" or "people will judge me". All these excuses, if we stay in our comfort zone, lead to the logical yet unhelpful conclusion of delaying the task. The key is to challenge your excuses. Here are some common procrastination excuses considerations for challenging them.

Strategy #3: Increase your discomfort tolerance

Often the bad tasks are scary, boring or frustrating. When we feel these emotions it is natural to want to turn away from them and do something more enjoyable. So we procrastinate! The key is to not become 'discomfort driven' but rather increase our 'discomfort tolerance'. Here are a number of strategies that you can put in place to do this. 

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3. How to Stop Procrastination on 'The Boring' Tasks

Procrastination on boring tasks. Photo by Magnet.me

The following procrastination techniques are aimed at things you're putting off because they're just plain boring. These are the type of tasks that make you want to do anything else, like reorganizing your sock drawer. Because our brains crave stimulation these are easy tasks to put off.

Strategy #1: Make your rewards more immediate

The problem with boring tasks is that it is hard to be motivated if the rewards for doing them can seem so far away. This is where temptation bundling comes into its own. A concept that comes from the work of Katy Milkman at The University of Pennsylvania, the idea of this win-win behavioral economics strategy is bundle a behavior that is good for you in the long run with something that feels good now. Here are some ideas on how to implement temptation bundling to beat procrastination.

Strategy #2: Turn off to give yourself a chance

Email, Facebook, Twitter, or just plain old surfing the web all provide an opportunity for the procrastinator to go down a rabbit hole – and when we go down that rabbit hole we spend time that we can’t get back. Here are four techniques to manage technology and reduce procrastination.

Strategy #3: The Purposeful Path and How to Stop Procrastination

As Nietzche said "He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how". Having a good reason to do something motivates you whenever you see yourself starting to procrastinate. The clearer you are on your purpose, the less you procrastinate. Why, because purpose focuses you on your actions and what truly matters. Here are some steps to build purpose and beat procrastination.