For most of my life, I often procrastinated after hours whether I came back from school or work. Before thinking about even doing progressive things, I would want to balance out the exhaustion I felt from a long day of work by relaxing and doing hobbies. Looking back, this “balance” often felt like blinking my eyes, seeing that 5 hours had passed by, and realizing that there wasn’t enough time in the day to be productive. It wasn’t until recently that I found out how to properly balance my time.
Prioritizing Important Tasks
One of the issues I had was that I would tell myself I would start my tasks but never gave specific details on when I would start. The following scenarios helped me stay focused when prioritizing tasks was the issue:
- Going straight into work once I got home
- Starting work after a short break to relax
If I’m being honest, I tended to go with the second option more unless I had a pressing deadline and needed to hustle. The first option is great for hammering out tasks, but it left me feeling burned out by the end of the day. If there’s no urgency to complete something, the second option can help productivity and reduce burnout.
Practicing self-control
To do this, I would start by subtracting an hour from what I normally do after work. So if I played video games or watched TV for 3 hours, I would put a timer for 2 hours. Then, I would tell myself that no matter what when the timer goes off, I would finish whatever I was doing and start my tasks. The goal here is to create a habit that practices self-control. This took me about 2 months to do consistently! If it takes you quicker, that’s awesome. If you’re having inconsistencies, don’t worry about it! Everybody is on their own timelines, and it’s okay if it takes longer. As someone who was inconsistent in the beginning, the advice I would give is to acknowledge what went wrong. You don’t have to punish yourself or judge yourself negatively. Bringing awareness to what was wrong and adjusting your approach will do wonders to not only creating habits but achieving goals as well. After a year of practicing this, it felt so much better to not have impulses run my schedule.
Post at A Glance
Whenever I look at blog posts, I sometimes end up skimming through and not really finding anything helpful. So if you don’t have enough time to read the whole post, I want to say thanks for at least checking out my page! Without further ado, here’s a key takeaway from the post! Have a great day!
Bringing awareness to what was wrong and adjusting your approach will do wonders to not only creating habits but achieving goals as well.
– Joemer