Stay Focused: 3 Ways to Beat Procrastination Right Now

| 3 mins 57 secs

Let me set a scene that might be uncomfortably familiar to you: you’re sitting at your desk at work, eyes glazed like your favorite donut, and head filled with daydreams about pretty much anything but the task you’re supposed to be working on. Before you know it an hour has passed and you’ve hardly made a dent in your workload.

Our ability to focus can sometimes seem like an elusive ability that’s just out of our reach. There are too many factors to why we’re so distracted: we’re tired, we’re hungry, we haven’t had our coffee, we’ve had too much coffee.

No matter why you can’t focus, there are ways to kickstart your motivation and get your head back into your work without having to dunk it into a bucket of ice water.

Sharpen your mental focus with these key steps:

Take a temporary mental leave of absence

The key to stop being so unproductive is to be unproductive on purpose for a little bit first. Daily existence is a toll on the body and mind. Sometimes you need to clear out all the excess thoughts in your head and meditate.

Contrary to popular assumptions, you don’t need any candles or ambient music to meditate. Just spending a few minutes by yourself and focusing on deep and steady breaths can do wonders to your mental clarity.

Due to the hectic nature of modern society, we rarely get a moment to ourselves — to the detriment to our own personal wellbeing. We need to relearn the value of escaping the world to catch up with ourselves.

So, carve out a few minutes to mentally leave the building. You’ll be surprised how refreshed you’ll feel when you get back to earth.

Take one bite at a time

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

You might have heard that line before. If you haven’t, don’t worry — this is not an article that condones literal elephant consumption.

The metaphor speaks to how we should approach large tasks: a little bit at a time. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the immensity of the tasks that tower before us. Tackling our work in small doses is a much more manageable way of approaching large projects.

Don’t juggle

Modern society has glorified the concept of multitasking. These days juggling 10 tasks at once is encouraged and celebrated.

The truth is: multitasking just doesn’t work for most people. Stretching yourself thin by doing a lot of things at once will only ensure a mediocre job across the board. But dedicating your time to doing one thing at a time will maximize the best possible outcome of that one job.

I know, you’ve got lots on your plate. How do you manage your time to fit it all in one work day?

Time-blocking.

Every morning, I categorize my time into blocks by dedicating certain hours to solely focus on certain projects. Setting up a structure of how my time is allocated gives me a clear idea of how I need to spend my day, what my priorities are, and how long certain things should take.

So, stop juggling and start blocking.

To move forward, think backwards

A lot of the times the work before us can be intimidating at first glance. This is why we procrastinate. We don’t want to make a reality of just how much work we have to do to get to the end product.

Procrastination can keep us in a gridlock of unproductivity. We often hear that making a step by step process can help make things a bit more manageable, but even starting to conceptualize that process can be intimidating.

Here’s my tip on how to break free from the chains of procrastination: work backwards. Start with the end goal, then ask yourself: what needs to be done just before the end goal? And before that? Keep working backwards until you reach the beginning.

Once you’ve done that, take a step back and look lovingly at the process you’ve created without realizing. You now have a step by step process you can follow without being intimidated by the vast unknown of the tasks before you.

Everybody procrastinates. It can feel like the inability to focus was ingrained into the human condition. In reality, procrastination is just a bad habit that many, many people have. But you don’t have to be one of those people.

The best part about these productivity tips is that you can start implementing them this very second. So, go ahead and let me know how they worked out in the comments below!