Five ways to beat procrastination and get started
You know the feeling. The assignment is due on Friday, you have every intention of starting it, and somehow it is Thursday night. In between, you tidied your room, watched a few videos and replied to every message in the group chat, but the assignment itself did not move.
That is procrastination, and almost everyone does it. It is not a sign that you are lazy. More often, the work feels unpleasant, overwhelming or unclear, and your brain reaches for something easier instead. The five ideas below make starting easier, and keep you going once you have.
1. Remove distractions before you start
The biggest source of procrastination for most students is sitting right on the desk: the phone. It is very easy to check one message and look up twenty minutes later, still scrolling. Every notification is an invitation to stop, and it only takes one to break your focus.
Relying on willpower to ignore it rarely works. It is much easier to remove the temptation altogether.
Try this: find a quiet place to study, then put your phone at the other end of the room, or better, in a different room entirely. Turn notifications off for the length of the session, so you are not pulled back by that ping. If you need the phone for schoolwork, open only what you need and close everything else.
2. Keep your to-do list short
A to-do list is meant to help, but a list of twenty things can have the opposite effect. When you look at a page full of tasks, it is overwhelming, and the easiest response is to do none of them.
Big goals have the same problem. “Revise Science” is so large that you cannot see where to begin. Break it down into steps small enough to start on straight away, such as “read the notes on the digestive system” or “do questions 1 to 10 from the worksheet”.
Try this:
- Write down only four or five tasks for the day, not everything you could possibly do.
- Make each one small and specific, so it is obvious what finishing looks like.
- Promise yourself you will finish every one, and cross them out as you go. That line through a task is satisfying, and it builds momentum for the next.
- Put the list somewhere you will see it, on your desk or the wall beside it, rather than in a notebook you never open.
If you want a place to keep the list, our weekly planner (made for P6, works for anyone) is free to print.
3. Use your setbacks as fuel
Most of us have a moment we would rather forget. Maybe you did badly in a test you did not prepare for, or missed out on a programme or activity at school because an application went in late. It is natural to feel disappointed.
The danger is letting that disappointment eat away at you until it becomes another reason to avoid the work. Instead, you can turn it around. The frustration you felt is useful: it is proof that you care about the result, and it can push you to do things differently this time.
Try this: when you catch yourself about to put something off, remember how the last setback felt and tell yourself it will not happen again. Better still, write down one thing you will do differently, such as “start revision two weeks before the test, not two days”, and stick it by your desk.
4. Find people to look up to
It helps to have examples of what is possible. Think of people who have achieved something you admire. They might be famous: an athlete, an inventor, a scientist or an entrepreneur. They might also be much closer to home: an older cousin, a senior in school, a teacher.
Learn about how they got there. Almost always, the story includes long stretches of steady, unglamorous work, and plenty of times they did not feel like doing it and did it anyway. Reading their stories, or listening to them talk about their journey, is a reminder that success is built from ordinary days of showing up.
If they could push through the days they did not feel like working, so can you.
Try this: pick one person whose achievements inspire you and read or watch something about how they got there. Next time you want to put something off, ask yourself what they would do.
5. Reward yourself
When you do manage to beat procrastination, notice it. Maybe you finished everything on your list for the day, or went a whole week without leaving work to the last minute. That is worth recognising.
Rewards make good behaviour more likely to happen again. They give your brain a reason to associate getting started with something pleasant, rather than only with effort.
The reward does not need to be big. A favourite snack, an episode of a show you like, an afternoon out with friends, or simply taking a moment to feel proud of what you got done.
Try this: decide the reward before you start, and only take it once the work is done. “When these four tasks are crossed off, I will go for a swim” gives you something to aim for, and makes the afternoon feel less like a slog.
Start with the smallest step
Procrastination feeds on tasks that feel too big or too unpleasant to begin. So the most useful thing you can do is make the first step small. Put the phone away, write a short list, and start on the first item, even if you only plan to do five minutes of it. Once you have started, carrying on is far easier than starting was.
If starting is the part you struggle with most, check out making hard things easy to start which goes further into exactly that.