how to curb procastination

Procrastination is a disease people have suffered since creation. In students procrastination is manifested in postponing important activities e.g. assignments and study sessions. It is normal to procrastinate. However excessive procrastination brings dangerous consequences. All-nighters are an example of the consequences of procrastination. Postponing school work to a later hour, day or week only makes it pile up to an extent of overwhelming you. Like every bad habit procrastination is a habit that is difficult to get rid of. Follow these simple but helpful strategies to overcome procrastination.

 1.    Use time management tools

A calendar and a to-do list are the widely used time management tools. If you haven’t started using these tools yet, where you have been man! Using a calendar and a to do list wont only help you in curbing procrastination.  Storing due dates of assignments and dates of events in your head will only make your head busy at the end you will find yourself forgetting to execute them.

How to use time management tools

·         make a semester calendar.

You can choose a regular calendar, Google calendar or a calendar of any format.  on this calendar you write all assignments with their due dates, exams with their specific dates, school activities and other extracurricular activities with dates and specific places .we will explain more on time management  in our future posts, just stay plugged.

·        make a daily to-do list

A to-do list is a piece of paper which contains all the tasks to be completed in a day.it also contains tasks which you haven’t scheduled yet. You must walk with your to do list everywhere so that you should know what to do at every specific time the day. You should also write down every new task on the list so that you can schedule their time and transfer them to the calendar later in the evening.

A calendar and a to-do list work together. During the day, you walk with a to-do list in your pocket to remind you what to do at every time of the day. In the evening you transfer the unscheduled tasks from the to-do list to the calendar. You also make a tomorrows to do list by transferring what’s on tomorrows date on the calendar to a new paper. You should indicate deadlines for each task.

2. Tackle tough work first

“If you eat a frog first thing in the morning that will probably be the worst thing you do all day.”

– Mark Twain

Brian Tracy in his book eat that frog, he uses a frog as a metaphor of a harder or an unpleasant task. Tracy encourages tackling harder or unpleasant tasks. He goes on to say, if you have two frogs you should eat the uglier one first. Accomplishing a difficult task first will motivate you to accomplish more tasks in that day. In addition difficult tasks generally contain more hurdles. Eating the frog first will give you more time to rectify the mistakes. Therefore start doing your assignment soon after it is given to you. 

3.Remember forgetting
Remember the last time you forgot to do something important. The negative consequences you experienced, etc. remembering such an unpleasant experience will motivate you to getting the work done. you should keep a record of  your progress for future reference.

3. Split work into smaller manageable chunks

Sometimes tasks can be overwhelming. Splitting them into smaller tasks makes it easier to manage. For example, if your assignment is to write an essay, you can split your assignment into the following steps
Step1: read related articles  
Step 2: develop an outline
Step 3: write an introduction
Step 4: write the first four hundred words (and so on)

4. Put visible reminders

Put some notes or signs in your room, bathroom or on your phone to remind you that you have a task that needs to be executed.

5. Remember your goal

Remembering why you have to do a specific task is very important. you should list the positive rewards your will get after completing a task, list the negative consequences you will face for not doing something then decide on weather procrastinating  will help you or not. 

6. Reward yourself

Rewarding yourself after completing a task motivates you to complete future tasks. Eating a healthy snack, riding a bike, or taking a walk after accomplishing a particular task will give you the energy to complete other tasks because you will be thinking of doing the work to reward yourself.

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