Procrastination constantly continues to be our largest enemy against being productive, and if we don’t fight effective ways to break this habit it has the potential to completely derail our path towards success. Not to forget that the path towards success goes through studying.
Procrastination is the voluntary action of postponing assignments; the main consequences of this could be increased levels of anxiety and frustration for the person procrastinating or others connected to them.
Students who put off their assignments usually wait until the very last minute to complete them. The mentality of delaying our important tasks is thinking that ‘if I delay my assignments, I do not have to do them’. Unfortunately, this is not the case, but such behavior isn’t about being lazy. Many students find it hard to think for the long term, especially where students must attend to their classes via online platforms due to COVID-19. It is even more difficult to focus and stay motivated.
The reason we delay our important tasks is because we think that the next step is very hard, which is usually not the case. Now that I have talked about what procrastination is and what consequences it has, I will give six tips about how to take the next step to study effectively and how to overcome procrastination.
Change your way of thinking. If you keep doubting yourself and thinking that you cannot achieve a certain goal. Your subconscious mind will accept that as the truth and will act a certain way about how you perceive yourself.
So therefore, thinking positively about yourself and how easily you can achieve your goals and how incredibly organized you are with your time, your subconscious mind will accept that as the truth, and act upon it.
Break down the steps. break the big job down into a series of little doable steps so you can stay focused on just handling the next little task without being overwhelmed by the workload.
Remove potential short-term distractions. Clear your workspace, create an environment suitable for studying, or maybe put your phone on silent mode if that causes you to be distracted.
Create a checklist, write down your main goals for that week. Keeping the time span short for your goals would make it seem that there is less work to do, therefore it wouldn’t stress you out so much.
Checking out the completed tasks from your checklist would give you a feeling of fulfillment which would lead to being even more motivated.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step” by Lao Tzu
The trigger of procrastination is always stress, but to avoid and overcome it, you must just start doing your work! Start working only for five minutes. Studies show 80 % of people who start are likely to continue their work, so the key point to overcome procrastination is to just start.
The Pomodoro Technique, this is a time management method which enables the maximum amount of focus with the frequent short breaks to promote sustained concentration.
First pick a task, set a 25-minute timer and start working without any breaks. When the timer is up, give yourself a 5-minute break. This would be a small reward for your effort.
As I mentioned earlier about breaking your tasks to smaller pieces the Pomodoro technique is the perfect example to have an effective way of studying.
Here were the 6 methods on how to overcome procrastination. I hope these methods help people who struggle with staying motivated or studying effectively. School is maybe the most important chapter of our lives right now, but please do not overwork yourself and don’t forget sometimes all of us need a little bit of rest.
I hope you enjoyed reading :)
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