This post is based on the video – 9 Tips On How To Stop Procrastinating | Overcome Procrastination And Live A Better Life
Hi! I'm Antonio Centeno. I'm the founder of Real Men Real Style.
Today, gentlemen, I'm going to be giving you nine tips on how to stop procrastinating. This is something that all of face, all of us have to overcome.
Hopefully, if you can just follow or use a few of these steps, you're going to be able to overcome procrastination, you're going to be able to get done what you need to get done, and you're going to live a better life.
All right. Before we get into this, you know I'm going to ask you to subscribe to my YouTube channel. That way these videos come right to you. In addition, if you like, if you find it useful, please click on the like button.
If you’ve got something to add, let me see you down in the comments. Guys, I get down there, I interact with people, I answer your questions or I refer you to other websites that can answer the questions.
Of course, I'm supporting this with an article over at Real Men Real Style. I'll link to the article. That article will go into a lot more detail that what I cover here in the video.
Break Your Procrastination Habit in 9 Easy Steps
#1 Being Busy Is Not The Same As Being Effective
Tip 1 on procrastination, getting past it, is understand that being busy is not the same as being effective. I was just reading a study.
It talked about would you rather lose your smart phone or be sat in a room and you had to actually think for a while. Most people, they were scared to death of this. If you think about it, I think that's pretty scary.
So many of us, we just want to stay busy. We want to stay entertained. We want to always be doing something but yet we don't want to take a second to think about who we are, why are we here and where are we going.
Now, maybe that's a bit deep. Me being a philosophy major — yes, I was a philosophy major in undergrad — I thought about those questions. I think they're pretty important for you to have a solid base and foundation of who you are before you're able to get much done in life, in my opinion. There are so many of us who just want to stay busy.
We somehow think that if we were running on that treadmill we’re going to get somewhere. Think about that. You're running on a treadmill, you're running on a hamster wheel, it doesn't mean that you're going anywhere. You can be running really fast and thinking that you're getting a lot done but busy does not mean effective. So figure out who you are, what you stand for and where you're going.
#2 Prioritize
Point 2: Prioritize. Now, prioritize is taking everything that you've got out there and putting it in order and realizing that you're not going to be able to get done everything on your to-do list. I'll talk about to-do list here in a second. I'm a big fan of the Eisenhower Matrix.
The Eisenhower Matrix forces you to have the urgent and the nonurgent along with the important and not important.
It forces you to look at them because there are many things in our lives which are not important but seem to be urgent, a.k.a. social media, and then there were things which are not urgent but are very important such as spending time with those that mean the most in our lives.
This whole year flew by for me, spending time with my kids, taking them to the pool every single Sunday, especially my two daughters.
I've got three daughters but two of them are at an age where I can take them to the pool. My son, he goes swimming in the mornings with me. He really doesn't want to go in the afternoons just to go to the play pool.
I know that two years ago this wasn't on my list of priorities. It should've been. I really didn't do this with my son but I'm not going to miss this opportunity with my daughters. Make sure you prioritize what's important in your life.
#3 Schedule
Point 3: Schedule. Do not have a to-do list. Now, you can have a to-do list. I've got one and it has about 400 things on it. That is overwhelming. I'm not going to get to probably item 399 or even item 200.
I'm constantly writing down ideas and putting it on my to-do list. I realized if it's not scheduled, it's not going to happen. So go through and schedule things to actually get them done.
Go through your calendar. I'm a big fan of using a calendar whether it be Google Calendar, Outlook or whatever it is you're going to use.
Schedule the time to actually get done what you need to make happen in your life. That goes for both business and personal.
I actually have an entire date that I schedule aside. It's a family day. Other people can't come in there and make appointments with me. That is scheduled time for my family.
#4 Make Detailed Rocks
Point 4 is detailed breakouts. So this is related to the scheduling and why I say don't do the to-do.
The to-do, you can see something and it looks really short but that may take 24 hours of work versus if you actually have a detailed breakout, especially when you're scheduling it out, and you give it the time that is needed, that's really important.
You're not going to be disappointed. Often times we feel this burden. My wife and I call them rocks. Basically these things on our to-do list or that we've scheduled that just don't get done. You feel it's a rock on your chest. The way to eliminate those rocks is to give them enough time.
Another trick with detailed breakouts is to make sure that you give yourself margin, also give yourself and put limits there. My day doesn't normally start before 8:00 AM, and it ends at 5:00 PM. I know many people are like “Well, I've got to work more. I've got to do more.” Well, let me tell you. You've got a limited amount of focus that you can put in.
Studies have shown this. They've done some studies with chocolate chip cookies basically putting people in a room with chocolate chip cookies. Yes, I have a point here. They had to resist eating the chocolate chip cookies and then they were asked to do a task or take a test afterwards. The people that were told not to touch the chocolate chip cookies couldn't perform as well in test because they already used up a lot of their willpower not touching those very tasty chocolate chip cookies.
The point is you've only got so much time in a day to stay focused. So make sure in your detailed breakout you have limits on when your day begins, when your day end. You give yourself margin and you a lot the right amount of time.
#5 Do What Is Important First
Number five and this, again, building off point 4, is do what is important first. Brian Tracy talked about this in Eat That Frog.
At the beginning of the day get done what needs to be done. I shoot videos at the beginning of the day. Yesterday I was trying to shoot some videos at the end of the day. It didn't happen. I spent two hours, stayed here late, and got frustrated.
Here I am back in the morning. I'm feeling pretty good. I'm the only person in my company that can shoot these videos at this point. So it's very important that I do this.
I put it at the beginning of the day. Boom! It happens. I've got plenty of energy, plenty of attention. I'm able to make the important things. Do them first. Schedule them at the beginning of your day.
#6 Be Accountable
Point 6 is hold yourself accountable. Now, we’re not always going to be able to hold ourselves accountable. That requires a lot of self-discipline. It can be that you sign yourself up for something or maybe you find an accountability partner. I've talked before about how my son going to the gym in the morning, he's my accountability partner. I
I have another gentleman who I call twice a week, and he holds me accountable. We talk with each other. We do it for each other. We talk about what we’re going to do in our business in a set amount of time. He makes sure that I do it. Another way to hold yourself accountable is to sign up for a contest or an event.
#7 Reward Yourself
Number seven is to reward yourself. The example I use and the one I love is whenever I go to the gym in the morning, even if I just put my foot into the gym, the reward is that I can go into the hot tub.
I love the hot tub at the gym. You've got to find something in your life that you really want to reward yourself witness.
It can be something small, it can be something large, but make sure that you focus and you do have the small rewards because you don't want to have something that’s so far out like if I go to the gym every day for the next year I'm going to reward myself with a brand new car.
That's a pretty nice reward that is so far away. It's a big reward. Think about it. You want to have something that you have at least once a week but I would prefer you to break it up into much smaller rewards and build off that.
#8 Consider Paying For Help
Point 8 –these last two, we’re going to be a little bit more advanced — is to consider paying for help. What do I mean by this?
Well, it could be the accountability partner but it could be that you hire someone to come and assist you to get the job done. I can tell you. I've I got a gentleman who comes and he does the editing for my videos. Thomas, I know you're out there watching this video. Thank you very much. You've done a great job. One of the things with Thomas is that I pay him no matter what.
So if you're going to go to the gym and you've paid your coach to show up no matter what, even if you don't show up, you've already paid them, you between you're going to be there and the same way Thomas. He's doing these videos for me. I'm going to pay him the same amount every month whether or not I get him a certain number of videos or not. So I'm motivated to get those videos done.
#9 Make It Public
Number nine is maybe go public with what you're going to. I've done this at Real Men Real Style. It's helped hold me accountable. The great thing you don’t have to have a company.
You can use social media. You can just tell your friends and family that you're going to achieve this. Part of this is it's a little bit of a stick.
So I've talked about the reward. You knowing that you could possibly let other people down or that they would look at you negatively has a very strong effect and motivation on us getting things done.
So those are the nine tips. Go check out the article at Real Men Real Style. I go into a lot more detail there. Hopefully you enjoy this. I'll see you in the next video. Take care. Bye-bye.
This post is based on the video – 9 Tips On How To Stop Procrastinating | Overcome Procrastination And Live A Better Life
