If you often find yourself wanting to get many things done but never really achieving anything... welcome home. As tomorrow is the best day of the year for us procrastinators, here are a few tips and tricks I found along the way to beat procrastination and finally conquer the world!
1. Plan, plan, plan, and schedule
What do you want to do and when? Before starting anything you should take the time (even a few minutes should be enough) to think about what you want to create and what are your goals.
« If you’re not sure why you’re doing something, you can never do enough of it. » — David Allen
The most important questions are: what and why. If you know why you are doing something, then the rest will be easier than you think.
Make a battle plan2. Lower your expectations
It’s probably the most crucial part of it all. If you’re a perfectionist like me, then every little task seems like a mountain to you. Not because they are actually that difficult to do, but because you want to do them perfectly, from beginning to end.
You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.
But if you want to get anything done... every, you have to start, now. You won’t create anything great if you don’t try first.
Be free from your expectations!3. Set a timer and just get it out there
Whether it’s writing, doing maths homework cleaning your house, more often than not, the difficult part is to start. One trick I found to get rid of that « block » is to set a timer.
For example, as I was getting over my head to write this article (« I want to write a good article, but I don’t have enough time... »), I set my timer for 10 minutes. I mean, even the busiest person in the world can afford 10 minutes in a day to do something he values, right?
Use the 10 minutes ruleSo for the last 10 minutes I only had one job: to write without stopping, just throw words on the paper (I mean... screen) as fast as I could, without caring about style, formatting, or what you guys would think about the end result. My job was to get my ideas out of my mind.
4. Review and edit
Now that it’s out there and the first draft is finished, you can come back later to review and edit! With some distance to the « production phase », you’ll be able to see what is objectively good, bad or what needs to be completely rewritten.
Of course, here I’m talking about writing but it applies to every field, especially creative ones. It’s always better to produce something so that you can perfect it later than not produce at all because you want to make it perfect on the first try.
Which road should you choose? (Homework, procrastination)Some resources on creativity
- [Book] : Getting Thinks Done by David Allen
- [Article] : The acronym that changed the way I write by Ali Abdaal
- [Video] : How to beat procrastination by Thomas Frank
Let's chat
I think that’s about it for this post. I hope you enjoyed it! Please share in the comments what are your techniques and methods to beat procrastination!
Last updated: 2 years ago