Procrastinating is dangerous. When your brain finds ways to delay what you need to be doing, you are becoming your own enemy. 

When you procrastinate, you become stressed and unhappy. And the worst part is that the task you need to do will still be there, but now you have less time to actually do it. 

Long streaks of procrastination lead to stagnation. You are not making any progress and eventually this even turns into deterioration. 

You need to stop procrastinating. 

Procrastination comes from a disparity between our Present Self and our Future Self. The Future Self wants to be in shape, but the Present Self wants to eat fudgy chocolate brownies. We convince ourselves that now is not the best time to do something.

Instead of putting in the effort for a long-term result, we resort to short-term gratification. This is because our brain tends to value immediate rewards higher than future rewards. But the present is where the future is made.

Playing video games whenever you need to do something important, might make you forget about the task and feel a little better. But this effect is only temporary. After playing your game, you will a hit a new low, because the task you need to do is still there. If you decide to fight your low with another distraction, you fall into the downward spiral. You are conditioning your mind to crave short-term gratifications. You are giving in to a bad habit, which is very comparable to any form of addiction. 

You need to break the cycle of short-term gratifications. Here is how you can break the cycle: 

FIRST: MAKE THE TASK EASIER TO START

1. Write down the tasks you need to do.
2. Break big tasks into smaller tasks.
3. Prioritize the tasks in order of importance.
4. Pick an important task that seems the most doable/fun.  

You’ve now turned the task into something that is easily done and that takes you less than 10 minutes to do. But you will work more than 10 minutes. The most difficult part is the beginning, you need to get over that inflection point. Ten minutes in, you will become immersed in your task, feel good about the progress and hit a state of flow. The hype you are feeling even makes you want to pick up more unfinished tasks, and before you know it, you can cross off multiple items of your list. 

The best thing? It’s not even about being productive anymore, you are actually enjoying it! 

SECOND: MAKE IT LESS ATTRACTIVE TO DO OTHER STUFF

• Put your phone away or put it on Airplane Mode
• Disable WiFi on your laptop/tablet if you don’t really need it
• Work with pen and paper instead of a screen
• Work in silence or put on headphones
• Tell people around you to not disturb you
• Give your controller, tv remote, network cable to your parents or a friend and instruct them to give it back once you finish your task
• Use Time blocking. Create periods of uninterrupted work time. Commit to not looking at your phone, reading emails or doing any kind of leisure for these periods of time. 

Think of it as creating a Zen Garden that allows you to focus. In this space, you are mindful and fully immersed in the tasks you need to do. It is as if you awakened the ninja inside you and there’s nothing else in the world, except you and the task.  

That’s all you need to know. Now it’s your turn. Close all apps and start working on your task.   

Or I will call your mom.