5 Ways You Can Avoid Procrastinating At Work

We’re a generation that needs instant gratification. Whether it’s by checking your phone compulsively for new notifications, fiddling with smartphone settings, playing games, or fidgeting — you can’t afford to indulge those habits at work. When deadlines are hovering over you, it’s time to focus. We all tend to procrastinate at work, but it’s time to quit it — the procrastinating that is, not work. Here are our tried and tested tips to get you to be your best, most productive self yet.

1. Set Achievable Goals

Anxiety or the fear of failure is what causes us to procrastinate sometimes. The fear of failure stops us from giving our all to a task because we don’t want to fall short of it. The best way to overcome this fear is by setting goals that are much easier to achieve. Once you succeed in achieving a goal you’ve set for yourself, your confidence will build, and your motivation to keep working will increase.  

2. Prioritise Your Tasks

You may often find yourself juggling a million tasks at one time. It might make you feel busy, but work should be about quality more than quantity. Spread out your tasks over the week, and give yourself a manageable daily quota of tasks to perform, according to whatever is most important. Prioritising your tasks and completing each one at a time will ease your workload, and make everything more organised. 

3. Clean Up Your Workspace

Procrastination and untidiness are linked to each other. Messy desks or a disorganised workplace can make you feel lazy and unmotivated. Cleaning can make a huge difference. Clean up your desk, organise your desktop, and delete unwanted files. Doing this will inspire you to get moving on all the work you have queued up.

4. Remove Distractions

It’s difficult to resist talking to colleagues or scrolling through social media, but it’s the biggest obstacle between you and productivity. Go to a peaceful place, keep your phone aside and try to concentrate on your work for a while. You’ll become so absorbed, the work will be over before you know it. 

5. Surround Yourself With Inspirational People

Procrastination can be caused by a number of reasons, and one major reason is lack of motivation. Sometimes an inspiring conversation with someone is all you need to be encouraged. Be it a colleague, a friend or a family member, or even an online talk; the right people will exude positive energy.