An article I wrote, in thought of it almost being back to school. [Published on Associated Content]

Stop Procrastination

Are you always seeming to do everything in the last minutes of time? Just about everyone has procrastinated their homework and school obligations at some point in their lives, but allow me to help. Here is a list of things you can do the next time you feel like putting off your work.

1. Break your task up into pieces. It is often overwhelming to do all 40 of the math problems all at once. Instead, try doing ten at a time, take a small break and do another ten. Repeat until you have it all done. You can also break it up into pieces of time. Like if you have to read a novel or a long chapter, tell yourself that you will read for 20 minutes, then take a break and then go for another 20 minutes and so on.

2. Know that it doesn’t have to be perfect. Believe it or not, perfectionism is one of the biggest causes of procrastination. Another one along the same lines is fear of failure. But don’t let that get to you. Once you get started doing your homework, you’ll often realize that it’s not as hard as you have been making it out to be in your head.

3. Starting is the hardest part. It really is. But once you get started, it’s easier because you’ll be more motivated. It’s a fact that people are more motivated to do something that has already made some progress. So get it started, and it will be easier from then on.

4. Do it now and you won’t worry later. You probably know the feeling, when you have had 3 weeks to do a big project and every day that goes by, that’s one less day you have to finish it, and every now and then during the day, that thought pops in your head and it puts your mood down. Now, you only have 4 days and you are kicking yourself for putting it off. But if you were to have started it right away, that worry would have never came. You could ave went about your day perfectly carefree about that project. So remember that annoying feeling you get when you put off your work and stop it before it starts but starting it as soon as you can. Remember, the feeling you get when you finish your work is so much better than the guilty feeling you get when you put it off.

Hopefully now you won’t have the worry and problem with having to cram a task into the last possible moment.