With the holidays right around the corner and chilly mornings – it’s getting more and more difficult to motivate myself to stay on task and focused while working. Procrastination is winning. I just want to stay in my warm, cozy bed surrounded by my dogs and using my husband as my personal radiator (during summer months, I just want to push him off the bed for generating so much heat – but that’s a story for another day). When I do finally find the motivation to saunter over to my desk, I keep circling back to sub-par work and frustration that nothing is getting done.
Do you know this feeling of procrastination as well? It sucks, doesn’t it?
To increase our productivity and get our minds back on task, there’s a few things I regularly do that you could give a go as well. Fingers crossed it helps you as much as it’s helped me!
Sometimes we just need to walk away. And that’s OK.
Throwing your computer out the window is frowned upon – don’t know why, it can be highly effective at times. Not that I would know 😐 . When you’re feeling the temptation to pick up your monitor and chuck it at the nearest wall, this might be a good time to instead get up and walk away for a little while. Don’t just stay in the room but away from the computer, leave the space – clear your head. I’ll walk around the nearby park or sometimes just around the block.
Use this time as a way to reflect on how to reduce procrastination in a CALM manner
If you find your thoughts start to agitate you, it may be time to switch to a new thought. Think about tasks that you’ve successfully completed and goals you’d like to achieve. How can you propel yourself to achieving these goals? Where are you finding success in your current strategy? How can we fine tune these successes?
When you’ve begun pondering the meaning of life, you may have gone too far and it’s time to return to our desk.
Turn on the tunes & dance the procrastination away.
Music can lift any mood and change the direction of your thoughts in an instant. In fact, I recently wrote about the benefits of turning on a good song in this article. Whenever I feel distracted, frustrated, or just need to focus – there’s a song for that. Sometimes selecting a song without words or lyrics is best, other times those lyrics are exactly what I needed to trigger inspiration and reduce procrastination. Don’t forget to join us on Spotify for some carefully curated playlists. 😊
Discuss frustrations with others you trust
When music and walking away are just not cutting it for me, I find consulting with someone I trust can make the biggest difference. An unbiased voice can offer advice or help think through a task in a way you’d not considered – giving a different perspective. You may find that this new voice can offer a different direction for you to take – a path that was not even on the map previously. If you’d rather not verbalize your concerns and difficulties, try journaling or jotting down an idea map.
Other times, taking to online forum or group can offer all sorts of perspectives and ideas for how to push through that procrastination wall. Even just saying your concerns out loud to the universe may be enough to spark that light in your brain on how to move through. And, no, talking out loud to yourself is not strange… at least I don’t think it is. 😊
Let us know in the comments below – how do you break down the procrastination wall? What works for you?
