How to Overcome Procrastination

I just love cleaning. No, I’m lying. I hate cleaning. Just like I hate scrubbing the grout between the tiles in my shower. I managed to procrastinate cleaning my bathroom for an entire decade. It turns out if you wait long enough, the grout turns black, forming a pleasing checkerboard pattern. But when the grout started demanding that I feed it, I knew it was time to take measures.

Your personal nemesis may not be grout. For you, it may be preparing next year’s budget, or doing the laundry, or reading the new procedures manual. These things are all so much fun, it makes you want to squeal with glee. And no, I’m not talking about the TV show.

The problem is that these tasks are large enough that your brain knows they might expand to fill the rest of your foreseeable life. It doesn’t want to let you get started, because then you might never finish. If you’re going to die in the middle of a project, your brain would rather it be writing your magnum opus, an operetta in 12-part harmony about a chicken farmer’s quest for true love.

Dying in the middle of cleaning your grout would just be embarrassing. And yet, both the grout and the operetta must be done. Here are 6 tips on how to stop procrastinating onerous tasks. These are based on the “Stop Procrastinating” chapter of my book, Get-it-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More.

We’re taught that the secret to finishing a big task is to break it into baby steps. There’s only one problem: this rarely works, at least for me. Don’t divide the task into baby steps, instead, divide your time into baby chunks.

Tip #1: Schedule 15 Minutes a Day

Your brain is scared that cleaning the grout will devour all the time you have left in the world. So put a strict time limit on your task. Make the time limit small enough that your brain will be willing to give it a “go,” even when you’re tired. For me, that’s 15 minutes. It’s very, very hard to convince myself that I can’t spare a measly little 15 minutes to make some progress on an important task. And grout doesn’t filibuster, so 15 minutes will just be 15 minutes.

By scheduling 15 minute chunks each day, you make steady progress. Each chunk is small enough that you can overcome your resistance to doing it, but large enough to make strides towards your goal.

Use a timer that has a loud, external beep. When you hear the beep, your time is up. If you need to do cleanup, for example, putting away your Grout-Be-Gone foam and abrasive toothpaste, do it as part of the 15 minutes. You want to fit all parts of the chore into the brief time chunk, so your brain trusts that you won’t go over.

Tip #2: Stop When the Time is Up, Even If It’s Mid-Task

Once you’re off and running, it’s tempting to hear the buzzer and think, “I’m doing so well I can just keep going.” Don’t! Your brain let you start this project because you promised you would limit yourself to 15 minutes. If you cheat, your brain won’t be able to trust you next time. So no matter how strongly you want to keep scraping your black grout fuzz, stop, clean up, and finish your 15 minutes.

It’s actually better if you stop in the middle of the task. If you reach a breaking point, your brain can procrastinate more easily in the future. After all, that’s what a breaking point is. But if you stop mid-task, your brain will want to jump back in tomorrow to continue the process.

Tip #3: Devise a Time and Reward Trigger

Even though 15 minutes is short enough that your brain will let you get started, you still need to kick it into action. Don’t just assume you’ll put in your time. Decide when you’ll put it in. It can help to build in a reward for getting the job done or a punishment for slacking off. For example, my rule of thumb is that I’m not allowed to watch TV after 10 p.m. until I’ve put in my 15 minutes.

This strikes a perfect balance. I’m not depriving myself, so I don’t resent my cleaning time. I can still watch TV early in the evening. But to keep goofing off, the fuzz busting must happen. Since late night is my favorite time to catch up on back episodes of The Office, this guarantees I’ll make progress nightly.

Tip #4: Track Progress

Progress becomes even more effective when you see yourself making it. Put a little calendar on the inside of your bathroom cabinet door and check off every day you complete your 15 minutes. Pretty quickly, your brain will notice the strong connection between more checkmarks and less grout fuzz.

Tip #5: Don’t Accumulate a Backlog

If you miss your 15 minutes one night, don’t carry it over to the next night. That makes tomorrow night a 30-minute chore, and your brain doesn’t want to deal with that much work. It also makes each night that much scarier, since you’ve re-introduced the threat of a single missed night turning into never-ending labor in the salt mines of your life.

Instead, if you miss your 15 minutes, just smile and wait until tomorrow to keep going. Tomorrow always comes. And if it doesn’t, the grout will be the least of your worries.

Tip #6: Celebrate!

When you’ve put in your time, celebrate. Do the Black Grout Fuzz Dance! Give yourself a high-five. Give the grout a high-five! Then get back to your life until tomorrow. Keep your celebrations small and symbolic at this point. These are just to be the punctuation at the end of tonight’s successful adventure.

Big tasks are easy to procrastinate because your brain thinks the tasks might swallow your entire life. Keep that from happening by dividing the task into bite-sized chunks of time. Connect the time to specific triggers, and give yourself a little reward when you’ve made progress each day. Don’t accumulate a backlog, and for goodness’ sake, remember to pat yourself on the back when you’ve done your time.

Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!

I’m Stever Robbins. I mentor successful people in building exceptional lives, business, and careers by developing the courage to pursue their dreams. If you want to know more, visit SteverRobbins.

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