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How I Effectively Overcame Procrastination.

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@teesart
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One of the major causes of slowed development and growth in the lives of humans is no doubt the act of procrastinating. Procrastination to simply put is the act of delaying or postponing an action and this ultimately leads to slow progress in many aspects of life like in businesses, learning a skill, relationships and productivity in general.

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I have battled with procrastination too, and I'm glad I found a way to deal with it quickly while still young. Having to postpone assignments till a day or few hours to submission, preparing seriously for my exams just days to the exams when I had weeks to prepare and basically not giving attention to a bunch of things that were so important until the deadline was closer

In my opinion, procrastination itself isn't laziness, as it's basically just the act of delaying an action that's so important, although lazy people are very good procrastinators. Procrastination also doesn't make you give out your best when trusted with tasks and can give you a very bad reputation of not being worthy or to be trusted with tasks.

For me, the solution to procrastinating was quite simple and straightforward, but first I had to acknowledge it was a problem and started looking for ways to eliminate it. This way I had a clear mind into what I wanted to achieve and just did it.

Secondly, as cliché as it sounds, I created a time table for my activities for the day and stick to it. Making sure my day had do-able tasks and and most importantly, starting with the most tedious tasks. This way I didn't have to postpone the tedious task to another day since I handled them while I was still fresh and energised.

Also, setting goals and deadlines. It's a fact that all procrastinators hate deadlines. It's their kryptonite and they can't stand the word. So I just placed notes of deadlines around my work place and near my dressing mirror, for example, when I was learning how to swim, I had a note saying I was a pro in backstroke on a particular date and also publicly challenged my team mates to a swim on that date. That way I didn't miss trainings and worked so hard to reach my goal and it works everytime.

Finally, we live in an era where it's quite hard to focus on a task because of the amount of distractions we have around, understanding what distracts you and reducing them drastically would help you conquer Procrastination. In my case, my mobile phone was the major form of distraction and when it is time to carry out a task, I put my phone on flight mood so I don't get any form of distraction till I was done with the task.

Procrastination is a habit that's overlooked by many, but is quite dangerous to productivity and may be catastrophic in the future. As a procrastinator, it might seem difficult to adjust to being more productive and doing things now, but trust me, it's one of the best choices you'll ever make.