“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
Martin Luther King Jr.

This is one of the most precious quotes about procrastination that Sir Martin Luther King Jr. has given to us. It is a quote very close to my heart because with the use of such simple words he signifies the connection between our journey towards our goals and procrastination. This quote tries to explain that in taking the first step in achieving your goals, you won’t be able to see the whole journey. There are times when I feel very low and thoughts of cynicism fill my mind. I temporalize my work, my duties and all that I should be doing. I resonate with this because lately, I have learnt that taking risky decisions and having faith in yourself is the best way to work towards your goal. I have learnt to challenge myself, no matter how much I sulk or grump about it. In the process, I have seen myself grow in a number of ways and am aware of my strengths and weaknesses.

To give a basic idea about procrastination, it is the habit of postponing work or important issues to be dealt with later. The thing that I delay the most is completing my assignments, even though I end up submitting them before time, I sulk a lot about doing them like the majority of the university students out there. Delaying the work or college responsibilities, I feel has increased over the pandemic period due to the absence of boundaries set for work. There are no fixed timings and people end up working for more than 10 hours while being at home.

In the midst of all this, I would love to share some of the tips that I use to manage my own procrastination. I hope that these may be able to help the readers:

Awareness: the first and the most important thing that should be done is to be aware of the reason why we are procrastinating. By trying to understand the reasoning behind procrastination, we can easily try to work for solutions that may help us ease the delaying. Try to think about why you’re avoiding the work and ways as to what can be done to minimize the procrastination. 
Setting goals and being persistent in achieving them: try to list out some goals that you genuinely wish to achieve. These goals could be short term or long term with respect to duration. It is important to stay persistent in achieving these goals. Try to stay motivated in pursuing these goals. You can stay motivated if you’re doing something that interests you or something that you are very fond of, that way the work won’t feel like a burden and as a result of that you may procrastinate less about your work.
Make a work list: Try making a list of the work that you have to do in a prioritised order. The most important and the most disliked task should come at the top, followed by the other tasks. In this way you will be done with the most despised and troublesome tasks beforehand and will not really feel the need to procrastinate as you will only be left with the work that you can do with no worries. 
Reward Yourself: Make sure to reward yourself after accomplishing a particular disliked task. You can reward yourself by doing the activities that light up your mood, make you feel good about yourself such as cooking, exercising, singing, dancing, etc. One of the best things to do is to be with nature, taking a stroll, visiting a park with friends. Rewarding can be very efficient as it could act as a motivation to complete the task without trying to delay it.

In conclusion, I would like to say that procrastination is inevitable. There are people in huge numbers who delay their work, or temporize it. It is a very common phenomenon that takes place in every individual’s life. It is up to us to pick ourselves up and overcome procrastination. The tips given above have personally helped me a lot and so I share this little tip package with you. Hope it helps you!

Posted 3 years ago