This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s senior fall editorial intern Dalal Daher. Find her on Instagram at @dalalllldaher. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
I’ve been a chronically late person my whole life. I was always the last one to show up to the party, normally because I was submitting that midterm essay at 11:59 PM, frantically dabbing on my makeup in-between paragraphs. I couldn’t answer a text, start my work, or leave my house on time. I knew this behavior was annoying and inconsiderate, yet was convinced my chronic procrastination was incurable. I was resigned to always running late, joking that like my Arab family I run on LCT (Lebanese Central Time, notoriously at least fifteen minutes behind schedule).
My cycle of procrastinating and issuing apologies and excuses like Oprah gives out cars was survivable until it wasn’t. When I started working from home, procrastination was no longer a quirky character flaw but a major impediment to my work-life balance. Entire days would slip away from me as I remained in the limbo of avoiding my responsibilities, yet being unable to fully relax due to my looming deadlines. Inevitably, I would be forced to crank out my work at the last minute, stressed, tired, and disappointed in myself.
Do you relate to any of this? As a reformed procrastinator, I know this cycle feels inevitable, but here are some game-changing tips on how to stop procrastinating work that’ll help you find control and balance.
Be Honest with Yourself
To really change your habits, the first thing you have to do is truly self-reflect on what you want to change, and what unhealthy behaviors are limiting you from growth. Under the guise of “self-care,” I would tell myself that I would only scroll on TikTok for “5 minutes” before I started my work. In denial about how I was using this “5 minute” break, I would defend it as intentional self-care when it was really just weaponized procrastination. This tendency to preemptively reward myself for work I had yet to start was enabling my bad habits.
Try to notice any positive or negative tendencies you have when doing work. Do you suddenly find the urge to clean your room the hour before your essay is due? Does doing work with your friends help motivate you? Writing these habits down will help you get clarity on your procrastination patterns.
Find your optimal routine
Once you’ve figured out your unhelpful behaviors, you can make a routine that works for you. What’s helped me the most is structuring my work-life balance intentionally, rather than revenge procrastinating to account for the time I have to spend on my responsibilities.
I used to start my work at a different time daily, essentially freestyling my entire day under what I argued was a more fun, free lifestyle, yet the subsequent stress of procrastination leaked into every aspect of my life. I realized that setting up a loose but consistent routine was much more liberating. By prioritizing finishing my work, I was able to really ‘clock out’ and enjoy my leisure time unbothered, even if it was more delayed gratification.
The key to adhering to this routine for me was to associate a certain location with a certain activity. I used to sit on my couch for everything from doing work to relaxing and watching TV, so I would feel compelled to procrastinate more on the couch than when I would go to a designated “work location” like my desk or a coffee shop. This Pavlovian strategy of delineating your day-to-day tasks by location helps you fully engage in either work or play mode. Additionally, using an efficient refurbished laptop has been an integral part of optimizing my routine since it is an alternative dedicated device for work-related tasks, separate from leisure activities.
Use a calendar or whiteboard
So how do you create a routine? For me, heavily relying on organizational apps like Google Calendar and Notion is essential. I schedule blocks of time for everything work-related or not. At first this felt a bit over-the-top, but it became a great tool to combat procrastination by visually seeing how much time I actually had in my day. By intentionally scheduling things like physical activity and socializing rather than using them as means to escape your work, you ensure that you’re truly striving for a happier work-life balance.
Another trick I’d do is majorly overestimate the amount of time something takes when scheduling it. So if I have an assignment due at 11 PM, and it normally takes me three hours to finish, I would add some buffer time and assume it’ll take four or five hours instead. By training myself to overestimate rather than underestimate my work, I countered my tendency to procrastinate.
If you feel like organizational apps are a bit too easy to avoid, try going old school with a whiteboard. Not only did the practice of physically writing out my work start to get me in the zone, but making eye contact with my whiteboard calendar every time I walk into my living room made it harder to procrastinate my routine. Finding a way to make your routine personalized, enjoyable, but also inescapable is a great way to get used to it.
Always start way earlier than you think
This trick goes hand in hand with overestimating the time work will take you. Even if you CAN do something at the last minute, pretend it’s going to take you a ridiculously long amount of time. If you can write an essay in a day, try to start it 3 days before. This may be tricky to start but envision the stress and negative emotions you’ll feel from putting off this assignment, and use that as motivation to start earlier. The catch-22 of procrastinating is avoiding responsibilities in order to enjoy yourself, so when you face its consequences head-on, it becomes a lot less enticing.
Schedule some breaks
Once you create your routine, it’s important that it’s still enjoyable and balanced. Give yourself some well-deserved breaks in between your work with methods like the Pomodoro technique, which allots 5 minutes of break to every 25 minutes of work. It helps to set a timer for the exact amount of break time you have and pick a way to decompress that’s relaxing but not too enticing.
Envision the Positives
When you’re under the umbrella of procrastination, it’s easy to subliminally lose control of your life to the impending worry of an upcoming deadline. While reforming your habits is hard, what helped me stay consistent is envisioning the positive outcomes: a life where I enjoyed the present, felt proud of my work, and intentionally pursued my passions. Imagine the feeling of finishing your work early and enjoying the rest of your day completely unstressed!
Procrastination lures us in by deprioritizing work for temporary enjoyment, yet these bad habits will slowly seep into and harm the rest of your life. You’re always going to have work, so don’t let it control you. Even if it feels like a hassle, remind yourself that taking charge of your schedule will make you a lot freer and happier than waiting until the last minute as a form of “balance.”
Give yourself grace
Lastly, remember progress isn’t always linear, it’s a series of ups and downs that gradually move in a positive direction. If you have a setback, don’t beat yourself up or assume that there’s no changing your procrastination habits. Take what went wrong as a course correction that’ll help you find a better lifestyle for you. In the words of the late, great Nelson Mandela, you never lose, but either “win or learn.”
As a chronic procrastinator I eventually realized these habits were ironically leading me to center my work above my personal life. I found that being intentional about my life and my routine was so much more liberating than avoiding my responsibilities under the guise of ‘freedom.’ Change can be hard but in a world where it’s getting harder to truly unplug and relax, taking control of your life is the most powerful thing you can do. So take your life into your own hands and kick that procrastination habit for good!
Are you a procrastinator? Would you try any of these tips, or do you have any different ideas about how to stop procrastinating work? Let us know in the comments below!
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