Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. ~Don Marquis

Are you one of those people that will put off doing something until the very last minute and then wait 30 more seconds before doing it? Do you have trouble keeping up with last week much less yesterday? You are not alone. Many people suffer from the same problem but we have some advice to help you beat procrastination once and for all.

Steps to Beat Procrastination

1. Organize. One of the best ways to beat procrastination is to organize your tasks. Organization leads to you knowing what you have to do at all time. This can be a nice buffer between you and your anxiety about finishing the project at hand.Organize your project into smaller chunks. That way not only will the task seem less daunting, when you finish a section you will have achieved a sense of accomplishment. This reinforcement is important for it will make you look forward to doing another chunk of the task. Also, waiting until the end for your sense of accomplishment can lead to negative effects. One being that the reinforcement will not be psychologically related to the task that you completed. You will be exhausted after having finished such a huge task. Finally, you might not even finish the task that you have set forward to finish.
2. Have a task room. Do not play in the room where you do your work and do not work in the room you play in. This will increase the urge to play! The room will have become associated with playing making it impossible to focus on the well organized plan in front of you. Play does not have a deadline, but work does.
3. Reward. The reward of accomplishment after having finished a section can only carry a person so far. Suddenly, focus will shy away from what was completed, to what is left to be completed. This can get overwhelming, depending on the size of the task. A simple way to negate this effect is to reward yourself at the end of each section that you complete. Relax, grab a coffee or tea, sit in front of the television for 20 minutes. Even have some sort of special reward, for example, special foods that you only get once completing sections of your project. Do not, however, eat it whenever, for then the reward will become unassociated with the completion of the task.
4. It isn’t all or nothing. Do not think that these tips are a “change everything in a second” tool. People like quick fixes, and that is why they do not work. If you have a pattern of procrastinating chances are it has been ingrained into your pattern of behavior for a very long time. You will not wake up tomorrow and have beaten procrastination. This is just as likely as you wanting to lose 50 pounds and waking up the next morning and, surprise! You are now 50 pounds lighter without having put in any effort at all. If you think there are quick fixes in life, you will only cause yourself more anxiety when you fail.
5. Don’t fret, it’s not over. Organizing and rewarding will seem to work some days and not others. Some days you will fail to finish a section of a project because your favorite television show was doing a six hour marathon of reruns! Or people came over! Or…The best way to handle these situations is to not blame yourself, do not stress. Stress and anxiety will hinder your ability to catch up and finish the project.

Don’t fret, just reorganize your schedule.