All good things come in threes, right? So this is a follow-up post to both “Procrastination Frustration” and “Instant Gratification Station.” In both blog posts I have expressed my disdain for this little thing that seems to rule my life, which is procrastination. I don’t think I have to explain what that is, but it might be interesting for you to hear that I seem to have found a solution that helps me to keep my procrastination habit in check. So strap in people, as I tell you the tale.
In the beginning, no not that far back, but in the beginning of my school career I was one of those children, who always had their shit together. I did my homework pretty much the moment I came home, while my mom was cooking and had the rest of the day to play and do whatever I wanted. That was really nice and boy do I wish it had stayed that way.
But unfortunately it did not. Fast foward a few years and little Luna is now in secondary school. During her time in secondary school, smartphones, where you don’t immediately get a mini heartattack when you accidentaly hit the internet button, are starting to become a thing and little Luna also discovers YouTube… and so the lifelong cycle of procrastination begins. Homework and studying becomes much less interesting than watching people on the Internet make funny and relatable skits and while her English gets better from day to day, her procrastination habit gets worse and worse.
Needless to say, it hasn’t really gotten any better since then but I think I actually have managed to find out why that is the case and what I can do against it, so it happens less often, which is something I wanna share with you.
Little disclaimer here!
Just because these solutions work for me, it does not mean that they will work for you as well but maybe there’s something you can take away from this.
Alright, now that that’s out of the way, let’s just jump right in:
First things first, I noticed that the biggest issue about procrastination is the fact that, at least for me, it barely has any ‘dire’ consequences. I’ve somehow always managed to still get things done on time, although it was hella stressful, of course. Heck, I was even proud of how little time it took me to get something done. And it really didn’t help that my friends were like “Damn, you started yesterday? Impressive that you still managed.” … Yeah… I think you see why someone would almost take this as an ego boost although it was obviously never meant as such. That my sleep and well-being suffered substantially from this act was suddenly no longer important.
So I was thinking of what I could do in order to give myself consequences should I end up procrastinating and I decided on setting myself a hard deadline. Now, what does that mean? It means that I have a deadline every single day, at which I have to stop working, no matter how far I am. It’s like in an exam situation where the teacher says “finish your sentence and then hand it in.” Everything I didn’t manage that day I have to leave it be and see how I handle it the following days, even if that means having to get up earlier. Getting up early is one of the things that I am not so fond of especially, if it means I have to do it for work (I believe hardly anyone is), so this for me is a consequence that I do not like.
So far, this has worked like a charm. The looming deadline every day causes just about enough anxiety for me to actually do stuff and get done before the deadline without pushing me into a worried frenzy. It actually hasn’t been the case yet that I struggled and the prospect of getting up earlier the next day was enough of a downer to actually make me say “yeah, I don’t want that.”
Little additional note here: The deadline only exists, when the reason I didn’t get any work done, is procrastination, other factors don’t count.
Okay so much for the first thing, what’s the second?
The second thing will probably surprise you…… not at all. It’s my phone. Or rather the apps on it. I think it is no secret that our phones are a massive distraction. This is no different to me. So I tried apps like “Forest”, which I have spoken about in a blog post before and while that worked in the beginning, it wasn’t the solution I had hoped for. If you have read, my other post (I know a lot of refering back in this one, sorry) where I described some things that I found helped me cope with feeling burnt out, you will know that I do something I have dubbed “offline hour” every single day, if possible. In said hour I will completely turn off my Internet, to spend some time “offline.” I will use the time for self-care, writing/journaling, reading etc. Something I have noticed during those hours, is how much stuff I can get done in that time because there are no distractions. This had me thinking “okay, if my FOMO (fear of missing out) can handle this, then it should also be able to handle actually working on something, aka being actively distracted, with the Internet turned off.” And surprise, surprise it does.
I have now gotten into the habit of turing off my phone Internet completely, if I really need to focus on something and so far, it has been working like a charm. The extra step that it would require for me to turn on the Internet, plus the fact that I tell some people that I’m going offline, aka I have someone who would ask me, why I am back online already, is enough of a barrier in order not to do it. This means I either have the choice between actually doing something, or waiting until the time passes, because phones without Internet, turns out, are not really interesting.
I thankfully don’t really have the issue with the Internet on my PC distracting me, meaning I am not really tempted to visit any distracting websites but I know that some people might be. Since you probably, like me, have to use the interent for work/study reasons, I can recommend turning off everything else that you don’t need, including any and all messaging programs/websites as well as maybe putting a temporary website blocker (such as Forest, which also exists as a web extension) on sites like Youtube, Netflix etc. Last but not least, in order to not start playing a game instead, should that be a temptation you have, it helps to turn off the “launch on start” options for all game launchers, meaning you have to yet again go through this extra step before you can play. (Even more annoying, but effective, if you disable auto-login).
And there you have it, the fix to my procrastination problem. Obviously, everyone’s is different and you might have other reasons and issues as to why you procrastinate. However, if you do think that any of these tips or methods might help you, and you do end up giving them a shot, let me know how it goes for you in the comments.
Until the next blog post, take care ❤
~Luna
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