Procrastination is the act of delaying or postponing important tasks that need to be done. While it may seem like a harmless habit, procrastination can have serious consequences in both personal and professional life.

There are varied reasons for procrastination. It may be because people feel overwhelmed by the task at hand and don’t know where to start. Sometimes, it’s because they lack motivation or simply don’t enjoy the task. Or because they don’t have the knowledge to do the task at hand.

Whatever the reason, procrastination can lead to missed deadlines, poor performance, delays in general day-to-day work, and a sense of unease or guilt.

The effects of procrastination can be especially harmful in the workplace. Missing deadlines or failing to complete tasks can damage relationships with colleagues and clients and ultimately lead to lost business opportunities. In addition, procrastination can lead to increased stress and anxiety, which can negatively impact one’s mental health too.

I procrastinate a lot. Most days I think about things to do and then my mind says, “Maybe we can do this later?” And the ‘later’ never seems to come.

To get over this habit of procrastination, I have tried to do a few things differently and to some extent I have succeeded. I have found that the most effective way of completing any day’s tasks for me is to make a to-do list on paper.

Mobile apps for making a list of pending tasks are good too but somehow sitting at my workdesk every morning and making a to-do list on paper helps me the most.

I list out the urgent tasks first. I was advised by a senior to list the tasks in hand first in order of urgent and important, then not urgent but important, and then not urgent and not important. So that’s what I follow and most days it works for me. All I have to do is stick to the list of tasks to be done and if any unscheduled task comes up, some of the non-urgent work moves to the next day.

And yes, putting the phone on silent mode helps too.

This post is a part of #BlogchatterAtoZ 2023.