It’s an average Wednesday afternoon—arguably my least favorite day of the week. I find myself staring at the laptop screen, rotating between my empty Google doc, half-written emails, and multiple research tabs that are all open simultaneously. I quickly catch myself getting overwhelmed with all the pending tasks in my brain. So I close my laptop and reach for my planner.
This way I’m able to prioritize what needs to be done first and also give my brain a break from the screen while still maintaining productivity. If this was last year, I would have spent another 30 minutes on my laptop just moving from tab to tab, exhausting myself mentally while still avoiding everything I had to do.
I was also more likely to fall prey to Parkinson’s law, which Claire Coley, a marketer and trainer, says is a common procrastination tactic where “you get something done just to fill up time, but it’s not efficient.” Coley, who has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and has figured out what productivity methods work best for her, also has experience working with teams to help them avoid procrastination.
As a freelancer, I have struggled with procrastination for much of my career, but in the past year it’s something I have actively identified and have been working on. I realized that without a boss or an office, I am the only person who can provide the discipline I need to optimize my work time and truly enjoy my time off.
That’s not to say I’ve developed a foolproof method by any means. It’s still an everyday struggle, and I find myself switching out techniques or methods to keep them more effective. But it’s a start.
Find what works for you
Finding my solutions started when I identified why I was procrastinating on certain tasks in the first place. For me, I found there were two main drivers to my procrastination. First, I felt a pressure to constantly be available to outside demands, whether they were related to work or not. That included family invites that clashed with work commitments, and emails outside of my working hours. The other driver was being overwhelmed because my brain wanted to do all of my tasks at the same time.
I’m still better at dealing with the latter than the former. Time-boxing my tasks, which means allocating a maximum unit of time to a specific task in advance, has really helped in making sure I’m less distracted. Also, having to-do lists and organizing schedules according to where a task needs to be done has helped. Organizing my time like this helps because if I need to do errands, I’ll group them all together so that I only leave the house once. Or I can plan to do all of my writing work in one place before I move on to organizing in another room. This way I don’t find myself wasting time commuting or losing focus because I’m constantly getting up from my laptop.
Getting to the root of procrastination
Charlene Espie, founder of digital marketing agency Tartan Social, says that in the past six months she’s been much better at keeping procrastination at bay. What motivated her was being responsible for a team and knowing that she needs to set an example for them. For Espie, who is a mom and a business owner, having a morning routine and noting down times next to her to-do list has been really helpful.
She often finds the root of her procrastination is a constant state of overwhelm and having so much going on in her mind. Making a to-do list is “like a release,” she says, and alleviates the pressure she feels to remember important tasks.
When it comes to helping yourself, it can take time to get to the root cause of why you’re procrastinating. “Procrastination has become a bit of a buzzword, and people don’t always look at what’s behind that procrastination,” Espie says.
Taking breaks
For entrepreneur and performer Em Stroud, what helped was initially figuring out that for the most part putting off a task could be due to an underlying fear of what the outcome of that task would be. She manages that in multiple ways, with one being by breaking up difficult tasks into smaller pieces and tackling them first thing in the morning.
But rest time can also be critical, she says. “Procrastination is also about meeting yourself with kindness, because sometimes what you’re procrastinating over is hard and you keep pushing and pushing and maybe you just need to say, ‘I think I’ve moved this along a bit. I’ll take a break.’”
Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, which can make asking for help (and helping others) that much more difficult. Coley says that asking open-ended questions can be beneficial in terms of gaining an understanding. “Everyone has different routines. Everyone is motivated and energized by different things. So if someone has asked for help, it’s about understanding that person’s scenario,” she says.
While processes to help avoid procrastination and increase productivity can evolve, what needs to stay consistent is answering the why. Why are we avoiding a task or distracting ourselves in the first place? In many cases, the answers to procrastination can come simply by listening to ourselves more and building a response from a place of kindness.