How Do You Prevent Procrastination, Here's My Method

[Joseph Maynor]

I have a 3 ring binder with 1 sheet for each of my ongoing projects, tasks, or problems in my life (so each item has its own sheet of paper in the binder).  I spend Exactly 5 minutes on each item per day, no matter what.  This prevents procrastination from ever gaining a foothold.  

Procrastination is an irrational fear of getting started which only grows when you put something off.  So you can see how this method is an end-run around the procrastination trap.  Not the only sustainable solution I'm sure, but a sustainable solution.

This is called the binder method combined with the 5 minute rule.

So, my discrete daily task is to do the task binder.  When I set out to do this in my daily routine, I literally go through the task binder page by page with a timer and spend exactly 5 minutes on each page (no more, no less).  So, this becomes a discrete task you do in your daily routine. It might take you 1 hour per day if you have 12 or 13 pages in your binder.

When an issue is resolved, remove that page from the binder.  When new issues arise, add new pages into the binder.

NOTE: The key to this method is you gotta do the entire binder every day, no skipping days.  If you can't make that commitment, you'll be wasting your time trying this method.  You gotta do the binder everyday no matter what.  So this requires like a 1 hour per day commitment to implement.

Take a 7 day challenge with this method and let me know how it works for you.

We wanna go from being procrastinators to being prolific creators In our lives, throwing-out awesome, inspirational art like crazy every single day.  That art is your real, actual, created, manifested results -- not some flimsy fantasy, some transparent dream, some illusory thought-story.

 

Edited August 2, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Loreena]

7 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I have a 3 ring binder with 1 sheet for each of my ongoing projects, tasks, or problems in my life (so each item has its own sheet of paper in the binder).  I spend Exactly 5 minutes on each item per day, no matter what.  This prevents procrastination from ever gaining a foothold.  

Procrastination is an irrational fear of getting started which only grows when you put something off.  So you can see how this method is an end-run around the procrastination trap.  Not the only sustainable solution I'm sure, but a sustainable solution.

This is called the binder method combined with the 5 minute rule.

So, my discrete daily task is to do the task binder.  When I set out to do this in my daily routine, I literally go through the task binder page by page with a timer and spend exactly 5 minutes on each page (no more, no less).  So, this becomes a discrete task you do in your daily routine. It might take you 1 hour per day if you have 12 or 13 pages in your binder.

When an issue is resolved, remove that page from the binder.  When new issues arise, add new pages into the binder.

NOTE: The key to this method is you gotta do the entire binder every day, no skipping days.  If you can't make that commitment, you'll be wasting your time trying this method.  You gotta do the binder everyday no matter what.  So this requires like a 1 hour per day commitment to implement.

Take a 7 day challenge with this method and let me know how it works for you.

We wanna go from being procrastinators to being prolific creators In our lives, throwing-out awesome, inspirational art like crazy every single day.  That art is your real, actual, created, manifested results -- not some flimsy fantasy, some transparent dream, some illusory thought-story.

 

 

Wow this was a great method. I am so bad at procrastinating, but this method might fail if I forget or get too lazy to go through the binder. But I'd try this method anyway. I guess we have to keep trying out many of them because different ones work for different people.

 

 

[Visitor]

@Joseph Maynor Do you have any tips to overcome the procrastination of using the binder in the first place? I am not joking, though it may sound funny.

What is the surefire way of beating procrastination?

[Loreena]

@Joseph Maynor  I have decided to break my time into essential time and wasted or unproductive time. I have kinda realized that productivity is not just associated with how much work you get done in a batch of time but also with the nature of your time, meaning the way you spend it. So consider time as space or a box and your productivity would depend upon how you bend this space or fold the box. 

So the way you spend time will say a lot about how productive you are rather than looking at the end goal, and sometimes getting frustrated over not achieving it, focus on the process itself and lookout for gaps in there. 

So probably dealing with your time in better ways is just another way of being on track. 

Keep a tracker for your time. 

Edited August 3, 2017 by Loreena

[Erlend K]

Personly I perform a lot better under timepressure, so I practice strategic procrastination: purposely delaying tasks untill I have the minimum of time left required to complete it on time. This alows me to work with much higher focus and intensity than when I lack time pressure. This both increases the quality of my work and reduces the nessesary time investment.  For me, and others like me, this is a great way to maximize productivity. 

[Joseph Maynor]

11 hours ago, Visitor said:

@Joseph Maynor Do you have any tips to overcome the procrastination of using the binder in the first place? I am not joking, though it may sound funny.

What is the surefire way of beating procrastination?

Haha.  Baby step it.  Spend 5 mins per day working on the binder to start.

The surefire way of beating procrastination is to touch everything that you want to be working on everyday for 5 minutes.  Procrastination is an irrational fear that gains a foothold when we put things off, when we resist touching them.  I call this fear irrational because the fear snowballs as we resist getting started.  Then when we bust through that fear we realize how we have greatly over-estimated how hard the task was to do.  Procrastination can be avoided by preventing this fear from developing in the first place.

Edited August 3, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Visitor]

7 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

...Procrastination is an irrational fear that gains a foothold when we put things off, ...

...Procrastination can be avoided by preventing this fear from developing in the first place.

Good reply, but still not convinced.

In the first part: Putting things off is procrastination. So it is already their before the so-called gaining a foothold.

In the second part: How do you prevent this fear from developing (besides never procrastinating again, or maintaining a binder)?

 

[Joseph Maynor]

On 8/3/2017 at 3:00 AM, Loreena said:

@Joseph Maynor  I have decided to break my time into essential time and wasted or unproductive time. I have kinda realized that productivity is not just associated with how much work you get done in a batch of time but also with the nature of your time, meaning the way you spend it. So consider time as space or a box and your productivity would depend upon how you bend this space or fold the box. 

So the way you spend time will say a lot about how productive you are rather than looking at the end goal, and sometimes getting frustrated over not achieving it, focus on the process itself and lookout for gaps in there. 

So probably dealing with your time in better ways is just another way of being on track. 

Keep a tracker for your time. 

Awesome advice.  The key is to make sure you only spend 5 mins on each item, no more.  Also, select very carefully what projects are in the binder.   And finally, do the binder once per day, no matter what.  Those are the rules.

[Loreena]

@Joseph Maynor  So far good. Been using this technique. I already feel relaxed. Because I can just put everything in one binder and not have to worry about anything being left out. 

I'd continue using this method and post my feedback again some days later. 

@Greatnestwithin You could try this as well. 

Edited August 7, 2017 by Loreena