It’s something we’re all guilty of. We think we have plenty of time on our hands for so long until we reach the night before a deadline. We start to scramble about, all the while thinking “I should’ve done this sooner.”. Procrastination is something that can be hard to overcome, especially when it involves homework. Luckily, there are a few ways that can make the process easier.
Set a Timer
The simplest tip is this: Set a 5 minute timer. After you press start, get up and work for the entire 5 minutes. No breaks, no social media, just you and the work you need to do. That’s it. For most people, the hardest part is getting up and starting. We push off tasks to protect ourselves from unwanted feelings such as boredom. Even if the thing we need to do takes only 20 minutes, it’s 20 minutes of our time that we’d rather spend doing something else. By the time you start doing whatever it is that you need to accomplish within those 5 minutes, you’ll already be well into the “zone”, and won’t even notice the timer until it goes off. When it does, it’ll be up to you to either keep working or reset the clock for another time.
Divvy Up Your Work
The next tip helps divide your work based on your current levels of fatigue. Let’s say you have an essay due in a week. Open up a google doc, slap on your MLA, write a few sentences, and let it sit for a while. Your progress will be labeled as a percentage. Every time you sit down to do your work, you’re only completing a certain percent of the assignment each day. If you can only manage doing 10% of an assignment, this would be seen as writing a few sentences for instance, it’s better than staying at 0%, which would be writing nothing at all. Writing in parenthesis “good hook about X topic” is better than an empty google doc. It’s better to say “I can’t write an introduction right now so instead I’ll write 3 sentences,” instead of “I’ll do it later.” If you can’t do 100% of something then the least you can do is a solid 20%, divide it in the most manageable way you can do.
Environment
Setting a productive ambience can sometimes be hard to achieve. Our environments often cause us to get distracted easily. Putting your phone in another room is one thing, but we have no control over the sounds of busy traffic or a loud family.
Therefore, it’s important for us to focus on the things we can control. Eliminating the smaller distractions will have a greater impact on your tendency to procrastinate. Drowning out noise with music is helpful, but it can also distract us.
Listening to music without lyrics, such as the Lo-fi genre, is proven to keep us peacefully concentrated. Music that focuses more on ambience than it does on words will motivate us to do more. Adjusting our surroundings bit by bit might inspire you to not procrastinate. We typically procrastinate school work, so finding ways to simulate a classroom environment will put your mind into a productive head space. For example, it’s better to work on a hard surface instead of in bed. You could get a little dressed up instead of staying in pajamas. There’s various ways to change your environment, finding what to change can be the hardest part.
We all have different methods that we follow, and these tips might not apply to everyone. Some might work, some might not. It’s hard to combat procrastination tendencies. Knowing what solutions will work for you are the best ones to implement. And it’s something I have to work on too, because I was this close to requesting a deadline extension for this article.
