how to stop procrastinating

• do the worst thing first; attack the hardest task when your energy is fresh and you give yourself the strongest chance of success
• start your day over at 2pn; grant yourself a second morning in the middle of the day in order to assess what you have already accomplished, remind yourself of what's critical and alter your plan so you can tackle the most important thing
• make the job smaller; getting overwhelmed by the size of tasks is like seeing a forest and forgetting it's made out of trees. cut down one tree and if you can't, cut three branches. see what you can rather than can't do. quality > quantity
• create an audience; when you are only committing to yourself, it's easy to blow it off but making yourself accountable to a friend makes potential embarassment a motivator (positive pressure e.g, not letting someone down)
• race the clock; set a timer for even just ten minutes (anyone can do that) and work in a focused, even frantic manner for that short stretch. you may want to carry on working further after the time stops as you will be into it
• don't interrupt yourself; block electronic distractions as much as possible so that you can focus on your work, switch your phone on or just put it on silent for the time that you're working
  • try rescuetime to track your online activity and see how much time exactly you waste whilst you should be doing something else. seeing the painful figures will hopefully make you stop
• plan an 'unprocrastination day'; gather most neglected tasks and a no-nonsense companion and head off on an odyssey of productivity, vowing not to return home until your long ignored to-do’s are done!