3 Ways to Avoid Procrastination

I have come to know myself as no stranger to procrastination.

If it isn’t necessary now, I’m not doing it. My quote in my yearbook was “Never put off tomorrow what can easily be done the day after tomorrow”

However, I am into productivity so I have read about actionable ways that you can fight procrastination. Some tips are obvious but they work amazingly.

So here are my three favorite procrastination combat strategies;

Tip 1. Be Bored

Boredom is terrible, in this day and age where dopamine stimulation can be gotten at the click of a button I’ve found it useful to use the pain of boredom to get me to do things that I am procrastinating.

This technique is where I remove all distractions from my space and set a 10-minute timer, I promise myself that in this time I am more than welcome to do nothing but that’s all I can do that or the thing I’m procrastinating.

This technique works so well because you can stare out the window, or spin on your chair all you want but eventually the boredom is gonna get ya, and it SUUUUUUCCKS to be bored, so I just do the thing I’m procrastinating.

Tip 1. Use boredom to your advantage

Tip 2. The Power of 3

Upon re-reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits I found this really interesting insight where Clear talks about ‘microhabits’ where you break the habit you want to do down to the bare bones. For example, if you want to adopt an exercise habit a microhabit would be to tie your shoes.

These micro habits allow for progress to be felt when very little has actually been done.

I use this concept in technique 2 which I call the Power of 3.

The Power of 3 is when you break down the difficult thing you procrastinate about into something that takes 3 minutes, that’s it. You just have to do the thing for 3 minutes and you’re done, you can move on.

I’ve found that more often than not that burst of momentum you get after those 3 minutes is enough to keep the ball rolling.

This is how I start hard things and keep working on them over time.

I’ve actually done a whole post about The Power of 3, check it out if you want;

Boost Your Productivity: Master the ‘Power of 3’ Technique

Tip 2. Trick yourself with the Power of 3

Tip 3. Use Dopamine

Dopamine is the happy hormone it’s that little chemical that fires in your brain when you are rewarded, more specifically during the anticipation of a reward.

That’s why it feels so disproportionately good when you have a package on the way versus having the contents of the package.

This is all due to dopamine.

I use this chemical by applying a system I have created called the Bottle Cap Economy.

The Bottle Cap Economy basically is a system that I made where I reward myself with bottle caps as a form of currency which I can spend for stuff that I want at the end of each month as a reward.

The anticipation of being able to add a bottle cap to the tally jar is enough to motivate me to do the stuff I am procrastinating about.

I also recently did a post about this system if you want to check it out in more detail;

The Ultimate Productivity Motivation System – The Bottle Cap Economy –

Tip 3. Dopamine is a cheat code to motivation, use it

In Conclusion . . .

The top 3 procrastination-combating techniques I know of are;

1. Use boredom to your advantage
2. Trick yourself with the Power of 3
3. Dopamine is a cheat code to motivation, use it

I hope you can find use in at least one of these techniques, please let me know if you have any other techniques you use, I would love to hear them.

If you like productivity and being creative, there’s this post about why you should keep a pocket notebook for enhanced creativity;

3 Reasons Why Creative People NEED a Pocket Notebook

Thanks for reading, have a great day 🙂