How to Stop Procrastinating

Procrastination prevents us from living a fulfilling life, yet we still do it—why? In Procrastination, psychologists Lenora Yuen and Jane Burka argue that we procrastinate to experience short-term relief from our fear of working on certain tasks. Fortunately, they claim you can beat procrastination and learn to live a more fulfilling life if you accept reality’s constraints and learn healthier ways to manage your fears. In this guide, you’ll learn how to…

• Identify the fears that lead you to procrastinate
• Reflect on how your biology, circumstances, and self-esteem affect your procrastination
• Learn to set and achieve realistic goals
• Better control how you manage your emotions and time

Throughout this guide, we’ll contextualize the authors’ ideas among those of other experts, such as James Clear and Bhante Gunaratana. Furthermore, we’ll supplement the authors’ strategies with additional actionables, such as how to start practicing mindfulness and how to stop avoiding exercise.

You have goals to achieve and plans to make them happen—but you’re constantly sabotaging your progress toward getting them done. How? By procrastinating: leaving tasks for “later” or “tomorrow” when you could really be working on them today. In Solving the Procrastination Puzzle, psychologist Timothy A. Pychyl contends that you aren’t procrastinating because you’re bad at managing your time. Instead, you’re procrastinating because you haven’t learned how to handle your emotions—the negative emotions that pop up each time you consider working on a dreaded task.

In this guide, we’ll take you through Pychyl’s research-based insights into what procrastination is and how it’s undermining your ability to live a happy, healthy life. Then, we’ll dive into the reasons you’re procrastinating and explore Pychyl’s advice for changing your habits in the short and long term. We’ll also compare his ideas with those of other psychology and productivity experts who’ve studied procrastination, and we’ll look at additional strategies for changing your relationship with your most dreaded tasks.

To be honest, all of us are procrastinators: We put off the tasks we don’t enjoy until later, or tomorrow, or the last possible minute—even when we know there are likely to be negative consequences. Personal development writer Thibaut Meurisse argues in Immediate Action that procrastination served a function early in human evolution, but these days, it prevents us from reaching our goals. Meurisse contends that if you face your procrastination habit head-on and figure out why you’re putting off your most important projects, you’ll be able to build healthier habits—and reduce the impact procrastination has on your work, your education, or your life in general—in as little as a week.

In this guide, we’ll explore Meurisse’s approach to understanding procrastination and examine his methods for minimizing it. We’ll also compare his ideas with recommendations from scientists and experts on productivity and motivation for approaching your work so you aren’t derailed by procrastination.

Procrastination prevents us from living a fulfilling life, yet we still do it—why? In Procrastination, psychologists Lenora Yuen and Jane Burka argue that we procrastinate to experience short-term relief from our fear of working on certain tasks. Fortunately, they claim you can beat procrastination and learn to live a more fulfilling life if you accept reality’s constraints and learn healthier ways to manage your fears. In this guide, you’ll learn how to…

• Identify the fears that lead you to procrastinate
• Reflect on how your biology, circumstances, and self-esteem affect your procrastination
• Learn to set and achieve realistic goals
• Better control how you manage your emotions and time

Throughout this guide, we’ll contextualize the authors’ ideas among those of other experts, such as James Clear and Bhante Gunaratana. Furthermore, we’ll supplement the authors’ strategies with additional actionables, such as how to start practicing mindfulness and how to stop avoiding exercise.

You have goals to achieve and plans to make them happen—but you’re constantly sabotaging your progress toward getting them done. How? By procrastinating: leaving tasks for “later” or “tomorrow” when you could really be working on them today. In Solving the Procrastination Puzzle, psychologist Timothy A. Pychyl contends that you aren’t procrastinating because you’re bad at managing your time. Instead, you’re procrastinating because you haven’t learned how to handle your emotions—the negative emotions that pop up each time you consider working on a dreaded task.

In this guide, we’ll take you through Pychyl’s research-based insights into what procrastination is and how it’s undermining your ability to live a happy, healthy life. Then, we’ll dive into the reasons you’re procrastinating and explore Pychyl’s advice for changing your habits in the short and long term. We’ll also compare his ideas with those of other psychology and productivity experts who’ve studied procrastination, and we’ll look at additional strategies for changing your relationship with your most dreaded tasks.

Do you frequently delay important work until right before the deadline? Do you find yourself distracted and overwhelmed by your daily tasks, unsure of how to begin them? If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone—according to Piers Steel, nearly 95% of people say they procrastinate. To address this common problem, Steel wrote The Procrastination Equation, exploring strategies to help procrastinators increase their motivation and reclaim control over their time. By reducing distractions, building confidence in your abilities, and making unpleasant tasks feel more valuable for yourself, you can begin to overcome procrastination.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the reasons behind procrastination and its consequences, along with Steel’s strategies for combating the most common procrastination triggers. In our commentary, we’ll identify alternative strategies for managing procrastination from authors such as Brian Tracy and Matthew Dicks. We’ll also explore additional resources for combating procrastination.

Do you find yourself delaying important work until right before the deadline? Do you get distracted and overwhelmed by your daily tasks, unable to even begin them? Everyone procrastinates, but there are specific techniques you can use to counter that instinct. In this article, we’ll explore advice from four authors on how to overcome our tendency to put things off.

You may not realize it, but your brain has an extraordinary capacity for complex calculations. Simple tasks like stepping over a garden hose as you walk across your lawn require elaborate computations, and yet they seem easy because your brain does them intuitively.

Barbara Oakley wrote A Mind for Numbers to help you learn math and science well enough that they, too, become intuitive. In this guide, we will examine Oakley’s explanation of your brain’s natural capabilities, her strategies for remembering complex concepts more easily, her recommendations for building good study habits and avoiding procrastination, and a few other tips for succeeding in your studies. We’ll also examine the scientific basis of her recommendations and compare her strategies to those of other experts in learning and memory.

The Procrastination Cure by Damon Zahariades is a practical handbook for understanding why you procrastinate and how to break the habit. A self-professed chronic procrastinator, Zahariades shares the strategies that helped him change his behavior, with the promise that you can apply the same techniques to manage your procrastination and enjoy a less stressful, more productive life.

Zahariades left a corporate job to create his own business focused on helping people be more productive. His books and his website, Art of Productivity, explore a variety of topics related to productivity, including time management, habit formation, and goal setting.

In this guide, we’ll delve into each of the sources of chronic procrastination the author identifies, which we’ll group by root causes. We’ll go over the approach Zahariades recommends to address each cause, including practical tips on removing distractions, increasing motivation, and managing your time.