Coworking Gracia helps you fight procrastination
Do you postpone work obligations in favor of less important ones? Do not panic. You are not a lazy person and at Coworking Gracia we know the reason for this practice, which, make no mistake, is tedious and involves a great mental load. And it is that, as Saramago said, “fatigue more what is not done, resting is having done it”. For this reason, because you feel the psychological weight of the deadline and suffer from it (stress, anxiety, a feeling of laziness, low self-esteem, guilt…), we are going to explain what procrastination consists of, what it is due to and, above all, how can you avoid it
Why do we procrastinate?
Take a walk on Facebook, look at a story on Instagram, buy tickets for a concert, order your desk drawers… There are a thousand examples of activities that prevent you from finishing that installment. But beware, although we think that procrastination has to do with productivity, it is much more related to emotional management, although it inevitably ends up affecting the former. And it is that our brain looks for immediate rewards in a circle that is difficult to get out of.
But it is not a disease! On the contrary, it is part of our human condition, a fight in your brain between the part that seeks pleasure and the rational one and, sometimes, the first one wins. The problem is that procrastination is addictive to our gray matter and, unless we stop it, it will grow.
The reasons for postponing work are many and are not always related to pleasure. In fact, it is very common in very perfectionistic people who are afraid to start an activity because they cannot fulfill it under their parameters of excellence. It also usually occurs in very complex tasks in which it is difficult to know where to start.
How to stop procrastinating
At Coworking Gracia we are aware that not delivering an order on time or waiting until the last moment to do so, in addition to affecting emotionally, translates into a decrease in productivity. The result of this work is usually not up to the level of another that would have been done with more time and tranquility (without going into value what a delay implies for your client or the rest of the team).
Therefore, if you think you procrastinate and have read this far, congratulations! You have already taken the first step. The next? Take it seriously, face the situation looking for solutions and organize yourself with the help of two fundamental tools: priority and planning.
Start by deciphering and ranking priorities. Delivery dates can guide you very well in this regard but, if they do not exist or if they change (something that is often inevitable, by the way), prioritize the most important jobs. Working like this you will not have the feeling that you are wasting your time.
A very useful tool in this regard is the Eisenhower Matrix, which will allow you to divide tasks into four types: urgent and important; important, but not urgent; urgent, but not important and neither urgent nor important.
Once the prioritization has been seen, prior planning will be your other great ally throughout this process. Thus, at the end of your day, detail in a list the activities that you are going to do the following with organization: divide the large tasks into simpler subtasks to the point that none of them takes more than 45 minutes. To do this, do not hesitate to get all the necessary arsenal (on or offline): post it, calendars, diaries, notebooks, applications… Of course, that the acquisition of them is not a cause of procrastination, eh?
The levels of demand (internal or external) together with stress and daily rush affect us emotionally and our productivity. Hence the importance of working in a friendly and professional environment in which concentration is facilitated, we are not exposed to possible distractions and we surround ourselves with productive and positive work environments and dynamics. Because we know that productivity in the work environment is also contagious, nothing like Coworking Gracia.
