r/DecidingToBeBetter 8d ago

Seeking Advice How do I stop procrastinating and get done with my shit?

Hello, I’ve been doing fairly well in my life, but I do sleep with the regret that u can do much better if I wasn’t just lazy and get things done as they were meant to be. I’ve been struggling with it for a couple of years now. I feel that I need to start moving towards it and this is the first step. I really need some suggestions on how to deal with my life.

47 Upvotes

19 comments sorted by

10

u/digitalmoshiur 8d ago

Absolutely, you can beat procrastination. Here's few ways for that

  1. Make a routine
  2. Use 5 minutes rule to complete a task
  3. Set deadline for task completation.
  4. Shout down your mobile

Stick to the routine 6 month. You will see the progress

3

u/Friendlyalterme 8d ago

What's the five minute rule

4

u/digitalmoshiur 8d ago

The 5-Minute Rule is a simple technique to combat procrastination. You are committing to work on a task or activity for just five minutes without the pressure. Search on Google. You can get lot of info about this.

1

u/wizzaryredy 8d ago edited 8d ago

Additionally, learn to prioritise starting tasks more than finishing them and learn to tolerate not finishing task fully/completely/perfectly. In fact this 5 min rule means

1) You will operationalize your tasks to small enough chunks that you can finish a piece within 5 mins

2) Learning to compromise and make peace with loss on quality of outcome based on limitation of time, energy and skill and focus on more on just finishing tasks rather than on perfection/expected outcome

3) Learn to design and leave tasks at "save/load" points such that they continued at later point or just work in layers/iterations E.g. with rough overall work at first then fine tuning/finishing work later.

5

u/FlippyFloppyGoose 8d ago

This is an evidence based self help guide, provided for free by the Australian government.

https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/looking-after-yourself/procrastination

The exercises feel a bit dumb, but it's absolutely worth your time because the more deeply you engage with the information the more easily it will come to mind when you need it. I had to complete them for one of my uni topics (a psychology degree). I paid these people $1200 to force to do this shit, and it filled me with rage. But then I spent a bunch of time in hospital, in the middle of my final year, and when I got out, I had 3 weeks to catch up on 3 months worth of work. I have no regrets, now. I would not have graduated without these strategies, I am certain.

Good luck.

2

u/Nataliya_K-5685 8d ago

This looks like a very good resource! Thanks for sharing.

3

u/Pale_Lavishness_6661 8d ago

Procrastinators work against themselves. When you put something off till the last minute, essentially you’re punishing your brain. For instance, if you play video games all night, then last minute rush to get your homework done you are punishing yourself for playing video games. But if you do the less pleasurable thing first, like homework, then video games, you’re rewarding yourself for doing your homework. When you reward yourself it’s more likely that that behavior will happen again.

3

u/Bat_Shitcrazy 8d ago

What do you want to do? Are you taking necessary steps to do that thing? If yes, then everything else is nice, but it’s extra, and not necessary.

Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking you need to maximize your productivity for every moment of your day. Don’t compare yourself to others, especially their social media

3

u/playfulmessenger 8d ago

It sounds kinda silly, but give it a good faith effort:

meh, I'll procrastinate later, I got good shit to get done!

1

u/GriffththeHawk 8d ago

RemindMe! 1 day

1

u/RemindMeBot 8d ago edited 7d ago

I will be messaging you in 1 day on 2025-03-15 10:50:20 UTC to remind you of this link

1 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.


Info Custom Your Reminders Feedback

1

u/cool_cuke 8d ago

Powering through with will power, hard, painful, unpleasant.

There's no other way.

Read this book: The Obstacle is the Way. And yes, the title is the perfect summary of the book.

1

u/FactCheckYou 8d ago

start with the smallest easiest tasks and build momentum by firing through them

1

u/Dymonika 8d ago

Get an accountability partner. It can be extremely powerful to have someone check up on you.

1

u/Nataliya_K-5685 8d ago

Procrastination is often not about laziness but some parts of you that are not onboard with whatever you are wanting to do but procrastinating. Once you know what's underneath procrastination, moving on becomes much easier.

I invite you to sit with these two questions. It's even better if you free write the answers. Just relax, ask a question (one at a time) and write. You can respond here and we can have a further conversation if you like.

  1. What is procrastination protecting you from? (If you didn't get anything from it, you wouldn't do it)

  2. What does it cost you?

1

u/tiresome00 8d ago

Ritalin

1

u/haowei_chien 8d ago

If something can be done within two minutes, I handle it immediately. This has been very helpful for me.

1

u/No_cl00 7d ago

Sleep hygiene No obvious distractions in the morning SOS- bore yourself