The Battle Against Procrastination: Some Tips and Tricks III

Part three of this epic trilogy shall be called “Productivity and where to find it”. In part 1, I discussed some preliminary ideas to get started (callback to whatever title it will have), and in part 2 (hyperlink), I toyed with some thoughts on how to improve the workspace. This final part is about bad days (or longer phases), and how to deal with them.

Even under the best of circumstances, you could lack motivation or focus. Everyone has these less productive phases, and it’s important to acknowledge this. There are, however, some tricks to work around them if need be (if you feel burnt out and have a choice, think about taking a longer break instead, and consider getting help. In the following, I listed some ideas on what helps me and my colleagues to get something done against all odds:

• Make time: Clear a set amount of time in your schedule and write down that you’re going to work. Once again, committing yourself to a task might help you to sit down and get started.
• Simple tasks: Find quick and simple tasks that you can do during your less-productive hours. For me that would be logistics – downloading my reading for the day or answering some e-mails, for example. If you are, like me, not a morning person, quick and simple tasks could help start your day. If you have downtime after lunch, these tasks might help you avoid trailing off into a food coma, and so on. Or, if it is one of those days where you won’t get anything done on a major project, then at least you’ll have done something that won’t interfere with your other tasks at a later, more productive, point.
• Netflix, music, etc.: Consider doing routine, simple, and ‘quick and dumb’ tasks while listening to music, watching series, or something similar. While I suggest in part 2 of this series to avoid these kinds of distraction, they can be a good enough solution for bad days: if you’re binge-watching on Netflix all day anyway, you might as well do some simple tasks or chores while doing it. Pairing simple tasks with something you enjoy can also help to get some tasks done at all that are otherwise often neglected. For example, when you’ve finally finished writing that term paper, you might be tempted to just send it off there and then and be done with it. Instead, why don’t you listen to your favorite album or play an episode of a series you know inside out while giving your piece another proper look: find those punctuation errors, double- and triple-check the Works Cited section, check the margin and line spacing format and all that boring, mechanical stuff that will drastically change the impression your supervisor gets of your piece. Bonus: Consider swapping term papers with a friend and proofreading each other’s works – it’s harder to spot your own mistakes in a text you’ve looked at for days than in a text someone else wrote.
• Timers: I have no idea why this works, but I can get started much more easily if I have a timer running (perhaps a relic of Schulklausuren where you absolutely have to vomit everything you know on paper in a limited amount of time?). There are several work/break rhythms that are known to be particularly helpful, and I recommend experimenting with them. Additionally, “real-world tasks” can boost my motivation to sit down and start working: If the dishwasher is going to run for the next 90 minutes, I find it easier to sit down and work for those 90 minutes and then clear away the dishes when it’s finished. If I am on the train to the office for two hours (which is an optimistic estimation), then I might as well use the time and work until my odyssey with Deutsche Bahn is over.
• Ta-dah-lists and to-do-lists: At the end of a day, take five minutes and write down what you managed to do, no matter how insignificant it may be. The number of words you’ve written, the fact that you’ve downloaded a document and read the first couple of pages… it doesn’t matter how little you write down but try to write down something. Then write a note for your future self what the next steps are. It can be much easier and more motivating to pick your work up again after a break (for example the weekend, or the holidays), and if you write these things down, it is much easier to know where you left off. For long-term projects, it could also help to write down the times you worked (or attempted to) each day.
• Finally, reward yourself for accomplishing things: with sweets, a movie night, a hot bath, by telling someone what you accomplished or by making a ta-dah-list, or whatever else makes you feel good. You determine how you want to reward yourself for your work – and the first step to that is to reward yourself at all. The part of self-reliant work where you have to make rules that you don’t like becomes much more appealing if you reward yourself for sticking to these rules.

Being your own boss comes with many challenges: you’re responsible for time management, you’re the only one who can make yourself sit down and work, and you’re the one who must decide what to do and how to do it. First of all, it can help to know your strengths and weaknesses, and what times of day you are most productive. Secondly, controlling your workspace and limiting distractions is useful, as well as knowing how to stay motivated. Finally, if you must work even if you lack motivation or focus, it is important to have a few tricks up your sleeve that will help you to get something done anyway. I hope that this three-parter gave you some ideas you can try out if you have trouble getting things done, and perhaps you have your own tips and tricks to share. Why don’t you share them with us on our Discord server?