4 Ways to Overcome Procrastination and Stay Focused

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We all battle with some form of procrastination. Some of us just have the nagging feeling and ignore it and some of us have piles of undone To Do lists from years ago. Here we’ll provide some tips to overcome procrastination and stay focused to get your work done. We suggest you read our beginner article How to Stop Procrastinating, to address mental blocks that cause procrastination and then come back to this one for tips on implementation.

1. Dive In like Cold Water

This adage is so repeated but absolutely true. Just do it. One of my favorite impactivists, which is another name for motivational influencers today, is Mel Robbins. She has a great method that really does work called The 5 Second Rule. She says you must basically beat your brains before it starts to reason with you. The moment you have an idea or wake up, before your mind even has a chance to start talking to you, you count 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and take off towards what you need to do. You don’t think; You just pretend you are a robot on autopilot and 5…4…3…2..1.. MOVE!

2. Always Question If You’re Scamming/Deluding Yourself

The proper way to measure progress consistently and accurately is meeting your own daily objectives while seeing some measurement of progress no matter how slow.

Let’s break this down, if you want to stick to something until the end, you need to focus on daily smaller tasks or objectives to get there. If you know you’re not putting in work on the smaller tasks, like painting one portion of a canvas and letting it dry, how can you then start painting the next detailed layer. You didn’t even knock part of the foundation out. You know the cliche, “The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.” This means there’s a 95% chance you will overwhelm yourself trying to talking something fast and all in one go. You’d have to be something like a savant who’s level of focus is literally an entirely different brain set up. So don’t ever feel bad making slow progress if you know you are inputting effort.

Now the flipside to this is, don’t give yourself a pass by doing menial tasks regularly. Your mind will try to find a slicker way to procrastinate by giving you a pat on the back for checking off “tie my shoes” on your To Do list as fitness. This means although you don’t want to rush your progress you do want to make sure something is coming out of the faucet. If you have zero progress, even when you are sure to put in valuable effort, this is an indication something is off and you have to change tactics. Just because you are meeting your daily objectives doesn’t mean they are the RIGHT ones for forward progress. Take a moment an analyze.

3. Incorporate Play During

This is an overlooked aspect for my hardcore hustlers. It is so massively detrimental for your mind to get rest and play that it could be the difference in not just giving up prematurely, but possibly having an addiction or mental health issues.

The Rat Park study showed that when rats where place in isolation in a boring cage they would drink from a heroine bottle instead of their water bottle until they overdosed or died. Now when rats where place in a community filled cage with other rats, so they could play or even have sex, they would choose the water filled bottle even with the heroine bottle still in the cage.

So even in all your work please make it fun. Play music as you work and take breaks to just play an absolute pointless game on your phone. Have gizmos and gadgets on your desk to fiddle with during brainstorming moments. A major part of procrastination for many is, its gonna be so looong in boring. So make it fun.

This goes for any activity. During travels listen to thrilling podcasts and audiobooks, use moments of light cardio to catch up on reality TV shows, and use computer work time to catch up on some Beethoven.

4. Incorporate Rewards After

Now this is important to keep moving from goal to goal and keep habits going for the long term. You have to learn to pat yourself on the back and give yourself validation. You have to feel proud of YOU.

Whenever you accomplish a major goal, you should celebrate in some way. It doesn’t have to be a big party, it could be buying a $200 pair of shoes or trying out a new fancy takeout spot. Its also great to share news and milestones with those who care about you and openly celebrate your successes. At the same time never take constructive criticism too harshly, or praise to much to heart. Keep a humble yet confidence balance.

Above all never forget you are an awesome valuable human working towards their dreams, to leave this world a little better for the next human crew.