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Now come on, it happens to all of us, on a daily basis, I’m going to say it. Ready? Procrastination. Yup. There it is. It’s officially out there.

We all have our lists of major and minor obligations whether it’s physically written down or abstractly floating around in our minds, it’s there, daily, on the reg.

Some of our responsibilities are impossible to avoid, like working on a major project for work where strict deadlines are enforced. Then there are things like, taking out the garbage, visiting your grandma, writing proposals, or sending out lengthy, important emails that require too much time and concentration.

We’re living in this wonderful (adjective is acceptably up for debate) digital age. This means, during the exact times we should be working and focused we find ourselves aimlessly scrolling down our Facebook homepages, flicking through Instagram, without even actually looking at the content sometimes, or responding to group text messages that you promise yourself you will delete, but months later you find yourself in more group messages than your phone has gigabits for and instead of leaving those groups you find yourself deleting pictures off your phone which leads to complaining that you need a phone with a minimum of 60MB.

So, how to stay motivated, right? Here’s a tip list for useful 21 century rewiring.

Tip #1

Set a deadline for your task and write that deadline down (if you don’t already have a calendar, a physical, material calendar, now is a good time to get one. After all January 1 is just around the corner). Seeing your tasks written out will help you stay focused on the necessary responsibilities that need to be fulfilled.

Tip #2

Postpone certain pleasures until you complete certain goals.

It’s sort of like you’re creating a reward system for yourself. For example, as soon as you finish programming this website you can head out to the park for a pick-up game of basketball (Insert your own task and reward here).

Tip #3

Really just force yourself to get that goal started. We all need to do things differently, some of us work better at doing everything at once for 6 hours straight while others are better at, say, 2 hour intervals.

As much as you want to resist starting, think about how much energy and time is wasted with thoughts like, ‘I know I should begin my research on Epictetus’ theories on Stoicism, but instead I’ll watch a YouTube video of Donald Trump’s ‘Message to America.’

Get the picture straight, those videos aren’t going anywhere, but your time is, start valuing it and stop wasting it.

Tip #4

“Power pose.” That’s right. Let your body communicate to you what you need to get done.

Set yourself in an upright empowering position. This will encourage you to stay focused on what you need to get done. Empower yourself; let your body remind you the importance of your task.

Tip #5

Label your tasks from “Very Urgent,” to “Urgent,” to “Important,” to “Not so urgent,” and “Not so important.”

This way you can really prioritize your tasks that need to be finalized and completed.  

Now get to it!

And remember, if you want to be taken seriously by others, then you need to take what you do and yourself seriously first!

Tags: efficiency, getting things done, motivation