Important advice: Procrastinate less with more optimism: These tips will help you

Important
Procrastinate less with more optimism: these tips will help you

15.09.2024, 19:44

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Making an appointment with the doctor or filing the last tax return. Many people put off such tasks. Here are some helpful tips to combat procrastination and how an optimistic attitude to life can help.

Whatever you can do today, put it off until tomorrow – or the day after tomorrow, or even better, next week. Annoying tasks are often put off, even if this can have negative consequences. Instead of completing important to-dos, people prefer to do trivial things. A recent study from the University of Tokyo suggests that procrastination is not just an annoying habit. It also has nothing to do with laziness. Rather, it can be related to one’s attitude to life.

The researchers found that people who are worried about the future are more likely to put things off. Optimists are therefore less likely to procrastinate. Surprisingly, it doesn’t matter how stressed or dissatisfied the study participants are with their lives. Study co-author Saya Kashiwakura has struggled with procrastination since she was young and has now benefited from the results of her study. “This realization helped me to take a higher perspective on the future, which led to a more direct view and less procrastination,” she is quoted as saying in a statement from the university. These tips can also help.

Questioning your own procrastination

Why am I putting off this task? This is a question you should definitely ask yourself. Has it become a habit? Does the task you have to complete cause stress or another negative feeling? Once you have discovered that you are procrastinating out of a habit, you can break it.

Emotional regulation and mindfulness

If to-dos trigger negative feelings such as stress or worry, emotional regulation methods can help overcome procrastination. Mindfulness exercises such as affirmations or meditation can help you approach tasks calmly.

Breaking large projects down into subtasks

Some tasks seem so big and almost impossible to accomplish that they are put off simply by being scared. Breaking a large project down into several individual steps can take the fear out of the whole thing. Combined with an organized schedule, a challenging task seems much more doable.

Tell family and friends about plans

If you tell others about your plans and goals, you can no longer procrastinate in secret. This raises expectations among those in the know and creates a little pressure from outside. This may be the little push you need to get started on projects. In the best case scenario, you also get additional support and encouragement.

Reward yourself

A reward can help to motivate yourself. It combines the tedious task that you would like to put off forever with something positive. This could be a piece of cake, an episode of your favorite TV series or a relaxing bath.