How to Stop Procrastinating

I know you've done it. You know you've done it. When faced with a lot of work to complete in a short amount of time, after having left said work untouched for several weeks, you type that very sentence into Google. "How do I stop procrastinating?"

STOP IT.

I'm guilty of this. I constantly look up productivity tips, looking for the hidden secret that will bring my lifelong procrastination to a finite end. But guess what? It never works. For several reasons:

1. I never follow the advice. At all. Ever. I've probably visited every result on the first page of Google search results, and I blatanly ignored all of it.

2. I only ever google "how to stop procrastinating" when I have so much work to do that my soul is dying the more I put it off. (And yet.)

3. I'm self-aware. I know I'm doing it. Hell, sometimes I choose to do it. I'm basically beyond help, now. 

Here's the thing: I know myself very well. I know that I get distracted easily while listening to most music. I know reading my textbook from my bed will result in nothing but fatigue and the desire to have a nap. I know that there is no such thing as "only playing Sims for one hour", unless I have some outside motivator forcing my ass out of the chair, and that starting a game early in the morning will chase away the entire day. (Similarily, I know that watching one YouTube video will result in another, and another, and another, and...) I know that, despite my best intentions, I probably won't wake up early on a Saturday morning to get work done, nor can I really count on getting much done on the bus.

I know all these things about myself, AND YET. And yet, I still do all of it. Every bit of it. I extraordinarily overestimate my willpower, without fail, every time. 

In reality, none of these lifehacks will stop you from procrastinating. If you want to put it off, you'll find some BS excuse to put it off. Hell, the very fact that you're spending your time googling these lifehacks instead of actually doing your work is the worst form of procrastination there is. You're self-aware! You know what you're doing!! Why are you still doing it?!?? (I ask myself this very question every day.)

You can tell, based on my uploads, when I feel like blogging. When I have an idea, I don't put it off--I run with it, and my blog goes up right on time. (4PM CST, just like this! Can I get an eyyyyy) I want to upload on time, I want to have regular updates, so I don't put it off. (Much?) But when I'm blanking, I don't want to do it. I don't want to stare at a blank screen and stress about the fact that my brain is crapping out and turning to goo. So if Friday rolls around and I still haven't thought of anything, I just leave it. "Welp, there's always Monday!"

I procrastinate because either A) I don't want to do it (lol homework) or B) I do want to do it, but I'm scared to get it wrong, or I don't know what I'm doing, or the task itself just seems too daunting. I have so many projects that I've quit because I felt like I couldn't pull it off--that it wouldn't be the way I envisioned it.

And that sucks. And it's also really stupid, because how else am I supposed to get better at anything? More importantly, how am I ever supposed to get anything done?

Literally the only way to stop procrastinating is to JUST DO IT. So stop reading this, and just start.

Are you procrastinating right now? No, don't tell me in the comments. Stop it.

Until later,

- Justyne