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Putting things off is not only unnecessary but also sabotaging your success. It’s time you learn how to stop procrastinating. 

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Definition: What does procrastination mean? 

Procrastination means putting things off in favor of other, less important tasks, even though you could accomplish them immediately. 

It wastes immense amounts of time and causes unnecessary stress. 

Often times people only manage to overcome the urge to procrastinate if the urgency and stress of delaying the task hit a certain threshold. 

By then, they have already wasted far too much time. 

That’s why it’s so important to nip procrastination in the bud as soon as possible. 

Here are some tips. 

How to stop procrastinating:

1. Turn off all notifications

One of the main procrastination triggers nowadays is the constant bombardment with information even when we are not looking for them. 

Notifications are the prime example. They pop up while we are working on a task, catch our attention, and if we don’t have a steel tight grip on our self-discipline they suck us into a maze of distractions. 

And sure, you might argue that you need these notifications to be aware of important messages. 

But be honest, how often was there really a life and death situation that you needed to be aware of right this instant, and how often could you have waited a couple hours without any drastic repercussions? 

Any and all notifications you receive are much more damaging to your productivity than they are helpful to your social life. 

So if you finally want to overcome your laziness, you need to turn those ‘pings’ and vibrations off. 

2. Keep a tally of every hour you spend without falling back on your typical distractions

Keeping a tally or creating a streak is a great motivator to stop procrastinating. 

Apps like ‘Forest’ or a visual streak you keep on a notepad help you build that momentum and keep you engaged during those first few weeks of overcoming your laziness. 

Remember, procrastination is a habit that you can break. After all, you do manage to stop putting things off once the stress gets too much. 

You just need to replace that daunting stress with a more positive motivator to get things done. 

3. Dedicate specific places to your work and your distractions 

Both bad and good habits are easily triggered by certain environments.

For example, if you spend much of your phone time scrolling through Instagram, you will want to open the app whenever you pick up your phone. 

On the other hand, if you have an office or a specific table that you use exclusively for studying, you will find yourself quickly focused as soon as you sit there. 

Use this knowledge and create triggers that will benefit you. 

For example, if you have a tablet and a laptop, you might want to dedicate the tablet exclusively to distractive activities such as Insta, YouTube, or Games. But, on the other hand, your computer should be solely used for work purposes. 

You could also rearrange or redecorate your desk depending on what you wish to do there. 

You could also wear a certain pair of glasses whenever you wish to go into ‘nerd-mode.’ 

There are honestly endless possibilities that you should play around with. 

This fun method can truly help you to stop procrastinating. 

4.Set realistic expectations 

If you have unrealistic expectations, you will end up disappointing yourself repeatedly. 

How are you supposed to get motivated to tackle your to-do list if you already know you won’t be able to get it all done?

This creates a spiral into procrastination. 

Don’t make that mistake; instead, set no more than three achievable goals for the day. 

Should you get them done earlier, I am sure you’ll easily find other things to fill your time. 

5. Start small

Overwhelm is one of the biggest triggers for procrastination. If we don’t know where to start, it is only natural not to start at all.

To combat this tendency, you should break down your tasks into the smallest actions you can take to get closer to your goal.

For example, you might struggle to do your daily workout. No problem! Let’s commit to putting on your sportswear first. Done that? Great! You are allowed to pat yourself on the back. 

Next, let’s roll out your workout mat and sit down. Done? Alright!

Then how about finding a suitable workout video on YouTube. After that, aim to complete the first exercise and, if you’d like, maybe the second. 

And once you feel like you can’t keep going, do just one more to feel extra proud of yourself. 

And that’s it! You’ve overcome the urge to procrastinate one tiny step at a time. Congrats!

6. Use an accountability buddy 

Procrastination is mostly broken when bad feelings about putting something off hit a threshold. 

An accountability buddy can help you reach that threshold much sooner, drastically decreasing your procrastination time. 

Traditionally, an accountability buddy is a friend who checks on you and keeps you responsible. 

However, you can also make people your accountability buddies without them knowing. 

Just declaring your goal to get something done by a certain date to others will make you fear embarrassing yourself in front of them. In an urge to avoid this embarrassment, you will pick up your slack and get things done. 

This declaration can be especially powerful if you dare to do it in front of a whole crowd, for example, through social media. 

7. Use the 5-second-rule

You know exactly what you need to do. Don’t even pretend you don’t. 

You don’t end up doing these things because you allow yourself to contemplate if you should do it now or later. 

The longer you allow this indecisiveness to go on, the harder it will be to make the uncomfortable but better choice. 

Why are you making your life so hard? 

All this time you spend contemplating the ‘when’ and ‘how’ you could already be making progress towards finishing the task. 

That’s why Mel Robbins’ 5-second-rule is so powerful. 

The five seconds you spend counting down between realizing you should do something and actually doing it are not nearly enough time to lose yourself in a spiral of indecision. 

Before you know it, you will already be kneedeep in the task, and at that point, it takes far more energy to stop than to finish up. 

8. Do the most daunting task first

My favorite way of procrastination is doing something else work-related, even though it is not nearly as important as the task I should actually do. 

That way, I avoid feeling lazy. However, it doesn’t keep the panic at bay once the pressure rises on my procrastinated task. 

Don’t allow yourself this kind of pseudo-productivity. 

Instead, force yourself to do the most uncomfortable and disliked task as soon as possible. 

9. Organize to avoid overwhelm

Another thing that can lead to you putting things off is a feeling of overwhelm. After all, not tackling a task is much easier than trying to figure out how to unravel a confusing mess. 

In those cases, it can be worth it to take some time beforehand to bring order into the situation. 

You need to identify the urgency and importance of the task and your first step. 

For example, writing your Bachelor thesis is very important but depending on how early you start, not very urgent yet. 

Your first task could be to read about the topic so that you can create a rough outline for your work. 

Now, you can get started more easily. 

10. Just get started!

One group of people – besides the perpetual lazy – that often end up procrastinating are the perfectionists.

In their quest to do everything perfectly, they plan and prepare and research and, in the end, waste all their time doing anything but the important things. 

This might apply to you without you even realizing it. 

So, force yourself to get started as soon as you have an idea for what you should do first.

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Do you think these tips will help you to finally stop procrastinating?

If you are ready to sit down and hustle, comment ‘Let’s Get it!’ below. 

Until next time, Felicity Seeker!

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Students are often short on time and can benefit greatly from time management tips for students. Here are 9 ideas on how to manage your time better.

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The importance of time management

Why is time management so important for students? First of all, time is your most important asset.

You can always get more money, connections, or skills, but you can never gain more time. 

Once time is spent, there is no getting it back. And especially in the age of on-demand distractions, it is infuriatingly easy to have time run meaninglessly through your fingers. 

Students can hardly afford all this wasted time. Instead, they constantly have deadlines; they need to organize their study schedule, social life, and hobbies while finding their place in the world. 

The older they get, the more responsibilities pile up, which requires increasingly skilled time management. 

If you don’t learn how to manage your time effectively while in school or college, you will struggle quite a bit once you have a job and a flat to manage. 

Time Management Tips For Students

1. Use a planner

This is probably the most commonly used tip for time management, and with good reason!

Keeping a planner and visually drawing out your tasks and appointments for the day, week and month have many benefits. 

Firstly, it makes it less likely that you will forget anything important. Of course, you might argue that you’ve never forgotten anything before because you have a great memory. 

But frankly, life tends to be chaotic and unpredictable; one day, you will forget something. At least make an effort to decrease that likelihood as much as possible. 

2. Anticipate delays and leave room for error 

No matter how well you plan, it isn’t easy to anticipate how long something will take. 

That’s why you should always leave room for a buffer between one scheduled task and the next. 

3. Work smarter, not harder

Working harder is not the solution to everything. But, more often than not, far better results can be achieved by working smarter instead. 

I recommend looking at the tasks you have to do most often and finding ways to do them quickly without sacrificing quality. 

This change could mean switching to digital flashcards instead of physical ones, or maybe ditching this one lecture and reading the extensive script instead. 

Play around with different options and see what works best. 

You will never know how to manage your time better unless you try it out and compare the results. 

4. Count your losses

Sometimes, managing your time better means ditching tasks altogether. 

When taking up a new task as a student, you should not do it simply because everyone recommends it and because it seems beneficial. 

You should only dedicate time to this task if the results are worth the costs. 

In other words, reading this 600 pages of the textbook might provide you with all the relevant information for the exam. However, reading much more will give you the most important information while freeing up enough time to do practice tests. 

Working smarter is about finding an alternative that is at least 1% better in its costs/rewards ratio than you did before. 

5.Utilize task patching 

Another great way to manage your time is by doing similar tasks in one go. 

Of course, you can’t apply this principle to things like studying or working out. For example, one 5-hour study or workout session can’t substitute for five days of repetition. 

But it makes much more sense to clean the house in one go instead of spreading the task out over days. 

6. Take advantage of ‘mindless’ tasks 

By now, you’ve probably heard that multitasking is supposedly not real. So when we multitask, we rapidly shift our attention from one task to the next. 

This statement is much too generalized, though. It’s not so much multitasking that’s the problem and much more multi-focusing. 

We simply can’t give two tasks an equal amount of focus at once. All we can do is switch back and forth. 

However, multitasking is possible as long as one of the tasks is mindless and doesn’t require focus. 

Most often, that’s the case with tasks that rely on muscle memory (e. g. brushing your teeth, tying your shoes, cooking your favorite meal, walking, etc.) 

Combining these mindless tasks with another activity is a great way to manage your time better. 

For example, you could listen to podcasts while cooking or driving a car. You could also watch your favorite series while you work out or eat. 

Or you could listen to an online lecture while taking a walk. 

If done right, multitasking can save you a lot of time. If done wrong, you will have to do these tasks twice because the first time wasn’t done well. 

Of course, you should also remember that multitasking is the bane of mindfulness, so if you strive to be more mindful in everything you do, then multitasking might not be for you.

8. Work past the crowd

You can save an immense amount of time if you avoid rush hours. 

Driving to school or university an hour earlier can reduce your driving time by 50%, and you can spend that additional time on campus studying what would have been left at the end of the day. 

Similarly, it makes sense to avoid the library when it is especially busy, or you might not even get the books you need or a desk to work at. 

That’s also why waking up early can be very beneficial. You have all this time for yourself to get work done without others interrupting you. 

Make sure to take advantage of student life’s flexibility and manage your time accordingly. 

9. Set yourself deadlines

The last time management tip for students is setting yourself deadlines. 

I have often noticed that I get things done much quicker than before as soon as there is a bit of pressure because of an approaching deadline. 

Often, we stretch out tasks for as long as we’re given time to accomplish them. 

If you have to write that essay in two weeks, it will take you two weeks. If you had to write it in two days, you’d find a way to do so. 

That’s the power of deadlines. So they get us moving and save us much time. 

Of course, it’s hard to take self-imposed deadlines seriously. One trick that might help is declaring this deadline to an accountability buddy.

The fear of disappointing them or embarrassing yourself will light a small fire under your ass. 

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These were all of the time management tips for students.

What was your favorite time management tip, and how do you manage your time as a student? 

We’d love to hear any advice you have to share with us.

Until next time, Felicity Seeker! 

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