Are you a procrastinator? - 7 Useful things to do when you’re unmotivated

My house hippo reminds me to get on with it!

I’ve turned procrastination into an Olympic event, so I can tell you, from my heart, that getting what you need to get done is often harder than it looks on paper.

I work from home, so have to be my own cheerleader, boss and accountability ‘partner’, so I have come up with a number of ways to get my head into my work and get stuff done.

One of the techniques I use to overcome my tendency to procrastinate is to switch my mind away from the task I am meant to do, and do something briefly, which will get my brain motivated and into work.

Set a timer for 10 minutes and ONLY work until the timer rings. Then stop – refocus – and get on with the job you have been putting off.

I’m going to share seven quick small jobs which you can choose from to kickstart your motivation! The trick is not to linger over them, even if they look like they’ll take longer than the time you give given them – when the timer rings – just stop! You weren’t going to do these jobs right now anyway, so what’s the hurry to finish them?

You can also create your own short task list as a go to for this exercise.

Set a timer for 10 Minutes

1.       Check and answer or file emails from your inbox – you will be working towards the Nirvana of Inbox Zero – delete, answer, action or file – you can do all of those things – once you have actioned an email or answered it, you can delete it. If you have kept the email thread in the answered email then everything can still be found in your ‘sent’ folder, or even if deleted. Make sure you don’t have automated deletion set up and your deleted correspondence will stay where it is and you can find it again if you do a search – however, it’s best to file anything you really want to refer back to!

2.       Do a puzzle – yes, I did say that! I know it’s not exactly work related, but solving puzzles helps your brain get into ‘work’ mode, helps you think and tests logic skills. Try a quick puzzle like Sudoku or an online jigsaw, and it will relieve some of your stress at the same time.

3.     Clean your desk, including your computer and keyboard. Tidy up the things you really don’t need to have in view. Give everything a good wipe with a damp cloth and a duster. Rearrange things if you like. Pop some items on your desk which make you smile – I have a ‘House Hippo’ !

4.       Check your computer ‘desktop’ and delete or refile items which don’t need to be sitting there. Desktop files can slow your computer down just by being where they are, and they are better filed where you can find them or deleted if they no longer serve you.

Make a shopping list

5.       Make a shopping list – look around your office and check what stationery supplies you need and make a list for the next time you go to an office supplies store. Do you have enough printer ink, paper, pens, notebooks – personally, I never have enough notebooks and can always fit more on my shelf!

6.       Check and empty your email spam folder – you should make a regular habit of this anyway, as sometimes spam filters can flag emails which are important to you. Delete everything you know is spam.

7.       Unsubscribe to subscription emails. We all have them. We have signed up for an interesting ‘how to’, ‘white paper’, ‘sales page’ and now we get emails far too often, which we never read and just delete. Rather than simply delete them, go that extra step and unsubscribe. Just be careful when you do this, as you should never try the unsub button from unsolicited emails as they can lead you to dangerous webpages, or at best inform the sender they have reached a ‘live’ email recipient – in which case they won’t unsubscribe you, but will double their efforts to spam you!