How I’m Fighting Against Procrastination This Year (Hopefully)
Written by Sharon Hamza
New year, new me...kinda.
I’ve always struggled with putting things off. Not in a dramatic“ I do absolutely nothing ever” way, but in the much sneakier, more annoying way where I’m technically productive but avoiding the one thing I actually need to do. Somehow, three hours will pass, I’ll be exhausted, and nothing important is finished. Just fabulous!
This year, I’ve decided to stop pretending that procrastination is an innate part of who I am, and actually try to do something about it. I mean, I don’t think I’ll completely stop procrastinating, but I want to fight back.
The first thing to do was be honest with myself about why I procrastinate. For a long time, I told myself I was lazy or bad at time management. Turns out, a lot of my procrastination comes from fear: the fear of doing something badly, the fear of starting and realising I’m not as good as I thought, the fear of the task being bigger and much tougher than I can handle, etc., Recognizing that panic this made procrastination feel less like a moral failure and more like a really unhelpful coping mechanism.
Now, instead of waiting to feel“ ready”, I’m trying to lower the bar for starting. If something feels overwhelming, I tell myself I only have to work on it for ten minutes. I don’t have to finish it, it doesn’t have to be done well, I just need to give it a shot. Nine times out of ten, starting’s the hardest part, but once I’m in it, I just keep going. And if I don’t… well, ten minutes is still better than zero.
I’m also learning to separate my self-worth from my productivity. This one is harder than it sounds. I tend to measure how good I am as a person by how much I get done, which means when I don’t do something, I spiral into guilt and avoidance, which (shocker) makes me procrastinate more. This year, I’m trying to remind myself that being tired, stuck or unmotivated doesn’t mean I’m failing. It just means I’m human.
Finally, I’m trying to be kinder to myself when I mess up, because there’s no doubt that I will. There will be days when I procrastinate anyway, when deadlines sneak up on me, when I fall back into old habits. But instead of turning that into proof that“ nothing ever changes”, I’m trying to treat each day as a reset button.
This very article is proof that my anti-procrastination era is 100% a work in progress. I even left this to the day before because of other university deadlines that snuck up on me over the Christmas break.
Will my newfound resolution for the year magically turn me into the most disciplined person alive? Probably not. However, if I can procrastinate with a little less stress and stop being at war with myself over unfinished tasks, I’ll count that as a win.
Here’s to trying. Hopefully.
