Do you consider yourself a procrastinator? Do you ever find that despite a ton of work to do, you end up distracting yourself with unrelated conversations, random videos or maybe even chores? Maybe that is what you are doing right now. Procrastination is a very common behavior where people end up doing something at the very last minute, despite having plenty of time beforehand.

Nevertheless, it might not be a sign of laziness or an inability to concentrate. Procrastination is defined as the action of delaying or postponing something. In modern life, this can refer to anything—whether it be household chores, completing a report for work or writing a dissertation.  The common thread that connects postponed tasks—which are affected by procrastinating—is that they are not seen as fun in their accomplishment, but rather, stressful.
Fortunately, these are three helpful methods to stop procrastinating.

1.    Divide you work into small steps. It is like eating an elephant. How do we eat an elephant? Of course, it should be one bite at a time. You need time to digest, or you are going to get sick. It is quite better to reward yourself for getting through parts of the project rather than wait until the whole thing is over. Organize that project into small bite-sized manageable segments. Think about what needs to get done and set a list of what you are going to be doing to tackle this project hour by hour, and make sure it is specific. By breaking down this giant project into smaller tasks, this elephant will become a lot less daunting.

2.    Make the motivation come into play. The hardest part about starting any project is the start itself. A good way to get around this is to start a project off with the tasks you like the best. When you do something that you like, your brain releases dopamine—which makes you happy and highly motivated. Maybe it can be decorating the cover of your report or putting on your favorite playlist while tidying your room.

3.    Ignore the siren’s song. This one is straight out of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. In the Odyssey, our protagonist Ulysses is trying to get home. Unfortunately, this requires maneuvering through a straight of water where sailors are often lured onto the rocks by creatures called sirens. Instead of giving up, Odyssey instructs his crew to tie him to the mast of his ship and for all of them to plug their ears no matter how much he yells and screams to head towards the beautiful sirens. That way, the sailors have to keep on track. In fact, this is not to say that you need to tie yourself up to anything, but you can plan to clear any distractions that will hamper your ability to procrastinate later.

Sources: Psychology Today, Lifehack, Mindful