Five ways to stop putting things off: break tasks into smaller pieces, use 2-5 minute work sessions, start with the easiest part, begin early in the day, or start with what you actually enjoy doing.
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Today's video is about beating procrastination and getting started on the things you've been putting off. Now, we all know how hard it is to get started, so I put together five real, actionable tips that will help you overcome procrastination and finally make progress. And at the end of this video, I'm going to reveal a bonus combo tip that's so effective you'll wonder why you haven't done it before. But first, tip number one. One of the biggest problems we face is the overwhelm we feel about a task. It feels daunting. The steps are too big and the reason we procrastinate is we're avoiding these negative feelings. By breaking the task down into smaller and smaller pieces, you can make it feel more manageable and less daunting. Start by creating a list of the tasks involved in your project and then break them down into smaller and smaller, more manageable pieces. And then break them down again until you feel you can attempt one of the pieces without the overwhelm. Tip 2 Often we feel the task will take too much of our time and we don't want to commit ourselves to the perceived discomfort for so long. We can solve this by creating a mini boundary around our time. Set a timer for a short period of time shorter than you think, like two minutes or five minutes, and work on the task for that amount of time and then stop. This can help you overcome the initial resistance to starting, but crucially help you realize that it really isn't as daunting as you imagined and you want to do more the next time. Tip 3 We can feel like the mountain is too hard to climb and this brings discomfort into our mind. We can beat this by starting with the easiest part of the task, like picking low hanging fruit as it still needs to be done. You'll feel the progress, the sense of achievement from a small win and the spike of dopamine will fuel you to do the next task. This action can help build build momentum and make it easier to tackle the more challenging aspects of the tasks later. Tip 4 over the course of the day, we have time to anticipate the difficulty of the task. We start imagining how uncomfortable it's going to be. We can overcome this by getting started early on in the day. Whether you're an early bird or night owl, get started on it as close to waking up as possible. Why? Well, this helps you get the task done before your brain has had a chance to enter the overthinking loop. Tip 5 tasks we procrastinate on are often filled with tedious or boring tasks we don't like to do. The thought of this this can stop us from even starting, and these aspects can be the only thing we think about. We can overcome this by picking the most enjoyable part of the task. You know, tick this off and this will feel like progress, which will give you the dopamine release just like before, and the motivation to do the harder tasks. And finally, the bonus tip. This is a two punch combo. The first part is to use an external source of motivation, such as an article or motivation video just like this one, as fuel to prime your mindset, and the second part is to immediately follow this up with one of the previous tips. This combination of fuel plus the tiny action can be all you need to get the engine started. If you found this helpful, consider subscribing.
