Putting it off until "later" is not something uncommon we say to ourselves, especially when Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are a click away.
But when it comes to work, procrastination definitely has some expensive costs.
"The U.S. gross national product would probably rise by $50 billion if the icon and sound that notify people of new email disappeared," Piers Steel, an associate professor at the University of Calgary told the Associated Press.
Understanding the causes and temptations of procrastination is the first step to eliminating it. We've collected a variety of insights from Psychology Today, WebMD and Lifehack on how to kick procrastination to the curb — at least for right now.
Schedule your time in smaller increments
If your time frame is too far off in the future, deadlines becomes generalities.
For example, if you plan on writing four chapters of your soon-to-be-published book in a month, it is not until the fourth week that you'll consider yourself actually procrastinating.
Planning in smaller time increments will less likely lead to putting off work until the last minute.
"There is a difference between saying, 'I'll write one chapter a week' and saying, 'I'll write four chapters a month,' wrote psychologist Susan K. Perry in Psychology Today.
Create hard-and-fast deadlines
Instead of thinking you will work on your project for three hours every morning, determine when you want certain tasks completed.
"If the boss hands you an assignment, she doesn't say, 'Work on this each day.' No, she says, 'Have this on my desk by next Friday.'
Source: Psychology Today
Map out all of your deadlines on one calendar
That way, you'll see that your tasks are all interrelated. If your task today affects your task tomorrow, you will experience an "urgency to act."
Source: Lifehack
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