Procrastination is a tough addiction to kick. There is something incredibly alluring about putting off unpleasant tasks until later, or tomorrow. There are a few tricks, though, that can help you kick the procrastination bug in the behind:
Free time is the carrot: Free time is the carrot you are going to be dangling in front of you. There are two ways to train yourself to work using this principle:
1. You can deprive yourself of free time entirely, until you get a certain task, or certain percentage of a task completed.
or
2. You can give yourself an overwhelming amount of free time, until you get your task or percentage of the task completed.
I have found the latter to work far better than the former. The basic idea is, you tell yourself: “Alright, Self. If you don’t want to work, you’re going to sit here and do absolutely nothing. Not sleep, not watch TV, not read a book or play a game. You aren’t going to answer the phone, and you aren’t going out, until you complete blah blah.”.
Believe it or not, this method works far better than #1. You may think you want some free time, but given absolutely wholely and entirely free time, for hours upon hours, you’ll be looking forward to getting some work done.