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3 Tips to Stop Procrastination and Be More Productive

Earlier today, I had this whole to-do list of things that I really wanted to get done. I needed to get this video made…and write a blog post…and plan my son’s birthday party…and so I had this whole list of things that I planned to check off today.

But like any good procrastinator, instead…I spent a couple hours shopping, cleaned the house a little bit, checked some emails, and before I knew it…half the day was gone, and I was going “where did the time go?”

Do ya’ll ever have this problem, where you have all these big plans and then somewhere along the way you just didn’t accomplish what you set out to accomplish today? You procrastinated?

So, I called my sister and I’m like, “I have all these things I need to get done, but I haven’t gotten ANY of them done!” She said, “Lyndsey, you know how you are. Quit overanalyzing, you’re overthinking things. Just go get something done!”

I figured, what better way to beat my own procrastination and maybe also help a few of y’all in the process, than to brainstorm three different ways to overcome procrastination. So that’s what we’re talking about today.

Tip #1 to Stop Procrastination

Minimize Distractions

The first tip for overcoming procrastination is to minimize distractions.

It’s just the world we live in today that there are distractions everywhere competing for our attention. Between the TV, and the phone, and social media, and email notifications…It’s constant.

So if you really want to focus and get things done, you have to find ways to cut out all the noise and minimize the distractions.

This means you may need to find a new environment that’s quieter and more conducive to getting your work done or where you can focus better.

It may mean turning your phone on silent and setting it to the side or turning the TV off.

Whatever you need to do to cut out a little bit of that background noise and really be able to focus on whatever it is that you need to get done. So that’s number one, minimize distractions.

Tip #2 to Stop Procrastination

“Eat That Frog”

The second thing that you can do to beat procrastination and get more done is…”Eat That Frog.”

Maybe some of you have heard of the book Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. Basically, the premise is to knock out that big task, whatever it is that you have been putting off and not getting done. Go ahead and get that knocked out first thing in the morning, and then that all the other tasks after that will be easier.

I love this advice because it’s so true. Whatever that thing is that you keep putting off and procrastinating doing…Whether it’s finishing that work report, going through your kids’ closets, or cleaning up your house or your space. I know when my house is not organized, everything else is really hard to focus on.

Whatever the big thing that you keep putting off is, go ahead and take some action and get it done.

And the thing is, normally once you’ve done the task, it’s really not as bad as you thought it would be, and you feel so much better once it’s taken care of.

It also tends to have a snowball effect. So once you’ve gotten something done that you were putting off, it makes it a lot easier to get those smaller tasks done after that.

Tip #3 to Stop Procrastination

Set a Time Limit

The third tip for beating procrastination and get more done is to set a time limit on your tasks that you need to get done.

I used to make all these to-do lists, right? And I’m not talking about just one to-do list. I mean, I would have like seven of them at a time…so, one in my purse and one on my desk and one in my planner, and they were all over the place. You know, just things I jotted down that I needed to get done…and I was no closer to getting those things done than before I had made the 7 lists.

What I started doing that really helped, was to put a time limit on some of these tasks. So instead of just “record a youtube video,” I will think about, “when am I going to have time to record this video?” And then, I’ll go ahead and block off that time in my calendar or planner to complete that task.

This gives me a deadline and more of a concrete timeline of when I need to get it done.

I realized when I was thinking about all this, that when I was in school, I was never late on a project deadline or a grade. And at work, I don’t ever miss a work deadline.

So I started thinking…well, why am I so much better at getting professional deadlines met, but my personal tasks, I just keep procrastinating?

So, that’s why putting a time limit on these things really helps to give you a cut-off, that the task needs to be done by this date.

Now, it’s not set in stone. And it doesn’t mean that things don’t come up, and eventually a task may have to be bumped back to another day, right? That’s life…#momlife.

But for the most part, it holds me more accountable and gives me a specific date that I want to have it done. And so I’m more likely to accomplish my task than if it were just another task on a list.