How to Beat Procrastination at Home

Procrastination has a habit of calling a halt on any plans, ideas and tasks you are involved with. In order to stay motivated and able to perform productively you will have to regain control of your thoughts.

Staying Power

Staying in the flow of action can sometimes be difficult. There are distractions, pressures and other people to contend with, which can often lead to your thoughts and actions changing gear and slowing down. This pause then allows procrastination to creep in, and it will delay any further progress you may have been planning. Procrastination is so powerful that it can also stop any ideas from forming in the first place.

Learning how to regain control over this powerful force will keep you motivated and focused, and will enable you to be productive and efficient. Removing the resistance you feel towards continuing with the planned chore, task or action, will allow you to make progress. To do so however, you will have to identify the underlying causes that influence your thoughts and actions.

Waiting Game

Procrastination can strike anyone at any time. Being confident in your ability to perform any task, chore or job will enable you stay focused on achieving positive results. Being aware of the motivating purpose you have, to complete any goal or task, will give you greater control over any delaying thoughts you may start to have. Putting things off however, will soon deplete any energy you have to power up positive thoughts and actions. Recognising the signs that procrastination is edging your way, can help you overcome the negativity that it brings with it.

Take Control

In order to stay in control you may have to utilise measures to stay focused. Goal-setting, list-making and rewarding yourself all have a place in the maintenance of your focus and progress. If something works for you, use this method to remain motivated. Learning new positive habits and training yourself to change your thought patterns will also help keep you motivated towards action.

Keeping a To-Do list can be a helpful solution to having to think about tasks that need completing. Simply adding suggestions to the list, whenever you think of them, will allow you to clearly see what needs to be done. In a shared home environment you could also encourage others to add ideas and suggestions to a communal list of tasks, so that responsibilities can be shared out between everyone. This will help keep everyone motivated to complete chores and tasks.

Setting small goals will also encourage you to remain proactive. Breaking down a larger goal, into manageable smaller tasks will keep you motivated to complete individual steps towards the larger goal. Should procrastination strike, working on a small piece of a goal will keep your mind actively working towards action, however slowly that may be at the time, and will mean you continue to build on achieving a positive outcome.

Delegating, and enrolling the help of others, to complete tasks also encourages you to think and act productively and efficiently.

Train of Thought

Training yourself to be productive is an easy step to making progress. By committing to working on a task for a short period of time – for instance, ten minutes – you will make steady progress. Building this into larger chunks of time – 20 and then 30 minutes at a time – will enable you to change negative thoughts, and stop procrastination from making an impression. Rewarding yourself with regular breaks will make the task even easier to complete.

Important:

• Remain in control of your thoughts.
• Identify any limiting beliefs in your ability to complete a task.
• Break tasks into smaller chunks.
• Keep your thoughts moving towards achieving progress.
• Reward yourself.