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How to Avoid Procrastination at the Office

September 27 2019 - Procrastination happens to everyone. At some point, eventually, everyone procrastinates on a task or project they absolutely don't want to do. Whether it's tedious and time consuming, or difficult and uninteresting, all your tasks at work need to get done, regardless of your mood.

Even though distractions are tempting, procrastinating isn't a good practice at work to continue doing. It may seem harmless at first, but over time you can get comfortable doing it, and it can start to affect your performance at work. It's much better to be known as the person at work who is a "doer" and a self-starter, rather than the person who's always stressed and putting off work until it’s down to the wire. By avoiding procrastination, you can work more effectively, efficiently, and enjoy less stress.

Here's how to get out of the habit of procrastinating.

Hone your time management skills

Time management is a skill just like any other workplace skills; it can come naturally to some, but others need time to work at it and practice. If you're a procrastinator, chances are your time management skills aren't the best they could be.

People often procrastinate because they think they know how long a task will take, so push it aside until the last minute with the expectation that they'll be able to finish in the little time set aside. However, this amount of time is usually misjudged, resulting in a rush to finish. This can lead to lower standards of work and can eventually affect work performance not just for themselves, but also for the company.

Taking a course in time management, like the ones offered from corporatecoachgroup.com, can help teach you how to prioritize, learn specific time management techniques, and overcoming procrastination and other time management mistakes.

Get rid of distractions

This may sound obvious, but a lot of people consider themselves excellent multi-taskers when in reality, they're just distracted by many things at once. You can’t be a productive worker if you've got 20 tabs open in your internet browser, or if you're checking your phone every five minutes to answer texts.

Even work-related distractions should be curbed. Excessive email checking is not only stressful, but bad for productivity. Holding unnecessary meetings to ideate or discuss with colleagues can just be a way to put off beginning the project at hand when you can complete the task yourself.

Give yourself rewards

Incentivizing yourself to get an unpleasant task finished can help you get it done. Offering yourself small rewards after completing a certain amount of steps on the project or checking off a specific number of tasks on your to-do list can be quite motivating. For example, you might allow yourself to get up and go for lunch after finishing off a project, or give yourself a 15 minute Internet or social media break after completing a particular section of your to-do list.

If you don’t find that your reward system is incentivizing enough, try introducing consequences. Maybe you don't allow yourself to watch that Netflix show you’ve been catching up on until you’ve finished the project, or maybe you stay off of social media until your task list is done. Whatever the case, the key is sticking to them so they're effective.



 
 




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