Whether in business or everyday life, procrastination is one of the biggest hurdles most people face in achieving their goals. Not taking action can set major life goals back months, years or even decades, preventing you from reaching your maximum potential. Here are the three best ways to stop procrastinating and get down to work on the things you know you need to do.
Write Down a Schedule
As simple as it may sound, writing out a schedule can help immensely in ensuring that you get things done. Having a written schedule will give you something more concrete than an amorphous mental plan to be accountable to. Make sure to allocate enough time in your schedule to get done what you need to do, but don’t fill up every second of the day. It can also help to make your schedule for the next day before you go to bed at night. By doing this, you will have the entire day ahead of you already planned out from the moment you wake up.
Find Someone Who Will Hold You to Your Goals
If you seem to procrastinate no matter how clearly stated your goals are, try finding an accountability partner who will remind you of the goals you have set for yourself and hold you to them. This person could be a partner, a co-worker or even someone from an online group or forum. Remember to reciprocate the favor by holding your accountability partner to his or her goals as well.
Set Rewards to Motivate Yourself
One of the best ways to motivate yourself to take action is to set rewards that you will give yourself once you have achieved a specific goal. If for example, you’ve had your eye on a new watch for a while, you might decide to buy it for yourself when you’ve reached some major milestone in one of your goals. Make these rewards reasonable but large enough that you’ll truly want to get them. Also, remember to scale up your rewards as you progress with your goals. If your goal is weight loss, you might treat yourself to a day off from work for losing 10 pounds, but reward yourself with a full vacation once you’ve dropped 50.
Beating procrastination will not be an easy process, but with enough dedication, you can overcome the urge to put things off and motivate yourself to achieve the things you want in life. Remember to work toward your goals on a daily basis. Over time, you will form a habit of progression that will gradually replace your habit of procrastination, making it easier to get things done.