How to Overcome Procrastination


How to overcome procrastination? The single largest time management problem for most people is that of procrastination. How to stop procrastination and all its unpleasant effects?

Procrastination in itself can become addictive – there are many intelligent students who are perfectly capable of completing their work on time, but somehow they still choose to procrastinate. Instead, they will stay up all night as the deadlines draw near in order to finish up the late papers, and do last-minute revision.

Cure for Procrastination

Is there a cure for procrastination? There is no long-term clinical cure. Rather, the cure must originate from the mind. Procrastination arises from weak determination and will power – conditions that can gradually be improved over time.

How to deal with procrastination? Any help with procrastination begins with self-help. Procrastination is a perfectly reversible habit. Three weeks is all it takes to form a habit – or to break one.

Overcoming Procrastination: Record your progress (and the lack of it)

Fighting procrastination begins with gaining the awareness of it; sometimes we become so used to procrastinating that we do it subconsciously: we think up of some excuse to delay doing something, and then forget about it altogether until it is too late!

With your to-do list, check off each item as it is completed throughout the day. If it is incomplete, write down the reason, including whatever excuse you might have given yourself for putting it off. As you repeat this for several days, that task you have been procrastinating on for no good reason will soon become obvious – and you will soon be forced to get started on it.

Overcoming Procrastination: Act NOW

If success is so easy, why aren’t there more people who succeed? To which Jim Rohn quips, “Because it’s easy to – and it’s easy not to.”

What’s the right success mentality? Act now. Do not wait any longer. If you allow yourself to put off doing something even just for 15 minutes, that 15 minutes will stretch into one hour, then half a day, then a full day, and so on.

How to Overcome Procrastination

To become successful in learning how to overcome procrastination, We must avoid the great disconnect between knowing and doing. There are those of us who study forever, always searching for the Holy Grail but never actually taking any action. As Dr Marden notes, “One talent fully developed is worth more than ten talents on a shelf.”


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