About Time: Top Tips for Serial ProcrastinatorsBy Angelica Malin
Do you procrastinate? If so, you are like many others around the world and it is not something to be ashamed of. With so much distraction around us with the likes of cell phones and other technologies, we are easily distracted. This doesn’t mean we can’t change though. If you want to get out of your serial procrastinating ways and get stuff done, here is how to make a start and become that person who gets everything ticked off their to-do list each day.
Admitting Your Ways
If you’re here reading this, you may already be holding your hands up and admitting that you are a serial procrastinator. Until you accept this and really want to change your ways, it won’t happen. You need to want to make this work and if you don’t know you’re doing it, you can’t change it. People procrastinate for many different reasons, including feelings of anxiety, as they have so much to do and feel out of control. Knowing that you procrastinate and why you are doing it will help to combat it. Take this quiz to see where you sit on the scale of procrastinating; the results may surprise you.
Find Your Learning/Working Style
We all have a certain way in which our brain best retains information and gets the job done. Finding your own working and learning style means whether you are revising for your finals or trying to finish your work presentation, you can get it done to the best of your abilities and find the process much easier. There may be a little bit of trial and error and it may be that you fall into more than one learning style category. If you have a photographic memory, try post-it notes and flashcards. For more auditory learners, record lectures or meetings and listen to them at home.
Top Tips and Getting Motivated
If you are a student who is trying to overcome their procrastination issues, have a read of this article by Daniel Wong which aims to help students get motivated to study. He has also put together an awesome checklist with 12 guaranteed ways in which serial procrastinators can improve their focus in order to get work done, which is free to download. For anyone struggling to get motivated, you can read up on some of these tips on how to break down work, how to exercise your brain to get more work done, and how to get better at organizing your time.
For some, it may also be best to study in a group, rather than alone. This allows you to take each other’s strengths and weaknesses and work on them as a group, finding gaps in your knowledge that you may not have known were there. Exercise and a healthy diet can also aid in improving your brain’s concentration levels and your ability to study effectively.
The first step in ridding yourself of this habit is to admit where you are going wrong. Find your best way of working and learning and then follow the tips above to get motivated.
