Whether or not you’re willing to admit it, procrastination affects all of us. Some people brag about it, most people resent it, but everyone wants to control it. I think that you can’t really control procrastination. It’s a natural behavior that’s innate to all people, but at the same time why do people have it? One could argue that it’s an evolutionary behavior. It encouraged early humans to stay in their comfort zones and away from predatory threats. It could be overcome by natural problems such as hunger, so that humans could go out and search for food. But in the modern day where all of our natural needs are more or less met, procrastination just hinders us from being more productive.

I’m not the worst procrastinator, but it can get bad at times. A lot of the time I can get started on a project and work on it non-stop for several hours, but getting to that point is hard. Even as I write this blog post I find myself constantly switching tabs to facebook messenger to read messages that I’ve already seen, checking my phone for new snapchat stories, and refreshing my e-mail boxes hoping for something new. Even though I know nothing new is coming, I still do it anyway.

Over my two years at college, I’ve come up with some good tools that help me battle procrastination. They don’t work all the time but sometimes they give me the push I need. Here they are:

Start small

Whenever I look at a new daunting project or homework assignment, my first instinct is to put it off until later. To combat this, I also break the assignment down into small parts, really small parts. Small enough parts that they’re easy to accomplish, but also give you a sense of achievement when you’re done. For example, the first step for me to finish up any of my AMS homework is to take out a piece of paper and write my name on it. For a programming project, this could be as simple as setting up a repository. Then I would follow up by creating empty files that I might need (Makefile, README, project.c), and then write up a few function signatures. On their own, each of the tasks is simple. When you put them together, you can get a substantial amount of work done without even realizing it.

Create a list

This one comes in handy on really busy days. A typical busy day might mean you have to go to your classes, do your laundry, work out, go to a group meeting, and then go out to eat with your friends. It could be tempting to put tasks off based on how you prioritize them (do laundry tomorrow, work out tomorrow, skip class), but chances are it never would have ended up like this if you didn’t put them off to begin with. Every morning when I wake up I just write down a list of the things I have to do that day on a post-it. Whenever I finish something, I check it off. The checking off part is crucial because it gives you a big rush that you just finished a task. That rush motivates me to get more things done and check off the entire list by the end of the day.

Get off social media

Social media is probably the biggest contributing factor to the modern attention span drop. When I need to get something done, I will delete the social media apps from my phone and re-download them when I’m free again. The reason this works is because most of the time, people will be using social media from their phone. Chances are, you won’t be able to re-download the apps back unless you are at home. This makes it so that you can’t cave in and re-download the apps to procrastinate. When you’re not on mobile, you could check out browser extensions that block certain sites like StayFocusd, but the problem with those is that you could easily get rid of them if you wanted to.

Some combination of these three tricks usually end up working for me. One moment I can’t focus and the next my projects are all completed. It feels good to check off that entire list at the end of the day and then binge watch the entire 2nd season of Rick and Morty at home. Hopefully you’ll get your work done, and then you’ll have the free time you’ve always wanted. Go ahead, you deserve it.