If you want to be more productive in your work and finish all the projects on time, check these proven techniques on how to become hard-working and efficient.
Photo: Ariana Escobar
Procrastination is very common issue nowadays and usually poses obstacles on many people’s way to success. Procrastination and lack of willpower can be utterly damaging not only to your career but also to your mind. Procrastination is like a monster that is stuck in our head never letting you do your job the way it needs to be done. Perfectionism, on the other hand, enhances fear of failure, which can be somewhat overpowering. The first step you need to take is to overcome that crushing feeling. Fear of failure makes you weak, indecisive and unable to show your true potential.
A few ideas how to fix this problem:
Arrange your time properly
When finding it difficult to manage your time, there is no need to be worried. We live in the digital age with plenty of mobile applications available for everything. Since time management is a common issue for many people, companies have developed various applications that can help you with that. Moreover, there are a few browser plugins and extensions everyone can install for free like the Productivity Owl who watches your browsing on the Internet and gives a message when you have to close a certain site irrelevant to your work. Apart from useful applications, the most important is to remain focused on a task and keep uninterrupted at least for an hour and a half. Do that and when the time is up, you will earn the right to use a break
Stay true to yourself
Are you a morning person? Good for you! If you get up and feel ready to work early in the morning then probably, you will not face any trouble dealing with main projects right after having your wake-up cup of coffee. On the other hand, if you are more a night owl rather than a early bird, it won’t be necessary to act overambitiously and get up too early. Have a good night sleep, get up and begin with the important tasks you have to accomplish. It does not matter whether your day starts at 7 a.m. or 12 p.m. as long as you are capable of bringing high quality work.
Set an anti-procrastinational environment
This means to get rid of all the distractors in your working space including pets, neighbors, chat-friends. Beware of Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest because they can eat most of your time if you are not careful. Many Chrome users find helpful an extension called StayFocused, which conveniently blocks sites iwth high potential to cause distraction. You can do more – switch off other kinds of distractions like the TV and avoid having Netflix turned on in the background.
Get rid of the to-do list
When lists make you anxious, then you should lose them for good. Alternatively, if they help you plan better your everyday activities then you have to keep them but not stick to them entirely. Lists give a particular benefit: to help us plan and coordinate working process, and remind us what else has to be done, in case we tend to miss things.
If you have an important upcoming work project of large scale, then you should start preparing. The earlier you start, the better. Wanting to impress your clients and employees is ambitious. Most people tend to put the difficult tasks on the top of their list, but afterwards it seems like they deliberately neglect them. A very useful technique to deal with such problem is breaking down the bigger projects to small and simpler tasks. It is also important to learn to ignore the voice of perfectionism in your head screaming, “It is not good enough. You have to start again”. To sum up, break the project into mini-projects, work on them separately and gather then in the end.
Reward yourself
Rewarding is a simple and efficient technique but mainly ingnored by most people. Imagine what will you do for yourself after you finish the projects – go to the movies, spend a glamorous night in the club, buy new clothes, or go on a trip – anything you want. Some parents use that trick to their kids to make them do their homework or teach them to behave in a proper way, but it works good on adults as well.
Additionally, take this extra piece of advice:
- Build up your self-confidence.
- Learn from previous mistakes.
- Stop taking more tasks and responsibilities than you can handle with.
- Maintain a positive outlook regardless of the number of awaiting tasks.
- Know how to deal with failure.
- Stay motivated.
- Set realistic goals and follow them.
- Value your skills and try to preserve yourself from ending up in a position when you depend on other people.
Do not let procrastination have power on your life. Look at these techniques occasionally. It will not take some time until you learn how to master them and become highly effective in your work. It is vital to grow confidence in order to put things in prospective and consequently become able to meet higher standards while building your career. Hopefully, sooner you will hear the sound of success.
