I Tried These 3 Ways that Helped me to 'Overcome Procrastination.'

Hey, guys, today, we're going to talk about laziness, procrastination, and I want to tell you that I'm going through a period of my life where I'm the least productive. If I take 25 years that I've lived already, I think this is the most unproductive time, which might seem different from your perspective because you see me posting stories. But the thing is, to post 1 story on Medium takes me maybe like 30 or 40 minutes. But the rest of the day, I could be, you know, sitting and thinking that I don't want to do anything. There's no motivation to do anything, and I know what's going on in my life. So I know why this is happening, and I know that they're going to go away eventually.

 So my approach to this is I'm not going to fight it, I know it's not a depression, it's not something severe, it's not a reason to see a doctor. It's just a matter of time; it is just a matter of supporting myself during this period. But, of course, if you feel depressed, if you feel that you need to talk to a specialist, don't hesitate. It's not a bad thing to seek help.

Today, I'm going to talk about things that work for me in such situations. So first of all, right now, I have this bad period that's been lasting for several weeks, and it's going to last probably a couple more months or weeks. Before this, I would get those days maybe once a week or twice a week. Those days when you wake up, and you don't want to do anything, you know how hard it was for me to wake up today and go to the office.

Like, my only desire was to stay in bed and do nothing, maybe scroll through my Instagram, maybe read some weird news that wouldn't help me understand the world better, but I didn't want to work at all.

№1: Instagram leads me to Procrastination.

One thing that used to work for me, I would open Instagram, I would follow different motivational people, and I would see them achieving results. I would drink coffee, see them starting companies, drink more coffee, and be pumped up for the day, and I will get over this. Unfortunately, this stopped working for me a while ago. I just don't get motivated by other people's success because I know many things are going on in the background that they are not showing, and I just don't get inspired anymore. So Instagram became this platform where I procrastinate, but I also understand that I have followers there and need to produce content. So one thing that worked for me is that I unsubscribed from most people from my main page. I only follow like 30+ people, and the majority of them are muted. So whenever I open Instagram, I only see DMs for my followers, which I answer from time to time, and I also create my own content, which takes around 30 to 40 minutes a day.

But then I have another Instagram profile that I use to follow my friends that I used to follow everyone I want to follow, and I only open it maybe once a day. Even before, I notice that I spend three to four hours a day on Instagram, and I was like, this is crazy; t can't be true. So I put a timer on Instagram, I set it to 1.5 hrs, and I barely hit this limit these days.

Once I separated two profiles, one for following people for procrastinating, being lazy, whatever you want to do with it, do it. But own specific time during the day, and then another one is work. So when I open it, I only work, do the necessary things, and then go back to my life.

№2: The word 'Must.'

The second thing that really works is the word 'Must.' This is how I was brought up. I have a schedule on this blog, a post once a day. I have two more blogs, a post once a week. I have meetings that are scheduled every Monday. I have things that I have to do, and I know that you know, it's very tempting to lay in bed and to do nothing. But the problem is the things will get much worse if I do nothing for two months, which doesn't mean that I don't have to take vacations. Vacations are super important.

But if I understand that this is just procrastination, this is just a period of life where I don't feel motivated to do anything; maybe it's time to kind of force myself to do that. There were so many moments in my life where I did that, and I'm so helpful to myself. 

For example, I had a crisis on my personal blog, which didn't get enough views. Then I was so demotivated to post anything; I wanted to quit. I wanted to shut it down. Instead, I just made myself produce an article and guess where it took me over 1 lakh views on my personal blog. 

You need to understand whether you don't want to do a thing that used to bring you joy or it's the thing that you have to do and you never enjoyed it. So if it's this thing, something that you have to do, you never enjoyed it, then this is a real problem. Here you need to think about whether you need to change your life, need to change your career; you need to change things that are going on. If it's a thing that you really love, like I love writing articles, I love playing games. But there are days when I think I want to quit. So on these days, I make myself work.

The first time I noticed that it worked for me was performing at a theatre (Fun Show) in Bangalore, India, and I had something like food poisoning, and I wasn't feeling well. I had a slight fever, and I thought I could lay in bed, but I could also go on the stage, and the moment I went on the stage, everything disappeared because I started doing the thing that I love. It was tough for me to go on the stage. It was tough for me to get out of bed, but once I got out, things changed completely. Today is the same thing, I went to the office with laziness, but now, you know, I'm talking to you and producing content; I'm doing what I love, and the perspective changes.

№3: Don't Overcomplicate things.

When I was a kid, my family and I used to go to the swimming pool every Sunday and every Sunday when the pool session was finished, I was in a shower for half an hour thinking about Monday, that was the following day, and I would be thinking like, "Oh, my God, I have maths, I need to learn this poem in English, and it was so daunting." I hated Monday because it seemed like a huge, huge problem. But the thing is, my Sunday was spoiled by those thoughts, by the way. But the thing is, when I came to school on a Monday, I realized it wasn't that bad, and that happened every single week. Then I started telling myself, you know, "Vishnu, you seem to overcomplicate things, and when you actually start doing them, when you come to school on Monday, it doesn't seem that bad. Why do you keep doing this to yourself?" And this is what we keep doing. We keep overcomplicating things; we keep making them beg like instead of thinking, you know, "I just need to fresh up and go to the office." But overcomplicating things that I need to go to an office to do this and that.

When our brain sees this amount of work, it just refuses to do it. But if you tell yourself, you know, there is one small thing you need to do right now, fresh up and go to an office. There is one small thing I need to do right now, Pack my uniform to get to the gym; then, it would get easier. You need to get in the process; you need to get yourself out of bed and get yourself going. This really, really helps me.

Who Am I?

By the way, I am the person who schedules. I am a person who wants freedom and, you know, I want to decide every day what I want to do. But I also understand that if I want to continue going to my goals, if I want to continue achieving my goals, I want to continue going through this life; I need those schedules, especially on days and weeks that I'm going through right now when I feel demotivated when I feel sluggish.

Final Thoughts

Guys, I want you to know that if you're feeling this way, too, you're not alone. The whole world is in this situation. We are in a middle of a pandemic, we're in the middle of lockdowns, we are studying remotely, we don't see our friends, we don't go out, we are stuck at our homes, and we're in the middle of winter, it is dark and cold and a lot of countries. So it is OK to feel demotivated. It is OK to procrastinate. Just understand that you're going to get through this. It's going to be over hopefully very soon, and you're going to go back to your normal life. Just continue doing things that you love, continue mastering your skill, continue achieving your goals. Don't waste this time, and whenever you feel lazy, whenever you feel demotivated, go and read some motivating articles or watch some motivating videos.

So I'm just hoping that this article will help you get through this period of your lives and Thank you for Reading.