Do Your Work. Especially if You Don't Feel Like Doing It...

Doing work isn’t always fun. It can be hard. Uncomfortable. And it requires effort.

But you know you need to do it anyway.

Yet the thought of procrastinating entices you to put your work off.

“It’s just another video,” you think. Or, “I’ll do it later.”

One video turns into two videos. Then, two videos turn into an hour. And so on. Eventually, you snap out of your procrastination. You realize that you spent a lot of time that should have been spent doing work. But instead, you wasted it.

Your mind justifies why you shouldn’t do your work, even though you KNOW that you should do it. The brain likes to play tricks on you sometimes.

So, you must know how to fight your mind’s justifications for procrastinating.

The good news is, that there is only one thing that you need to do to fight your mind’s justifications for procrastinating.

You need to do this one thing to accomplish your work, regardless of whether you procrastinate or not.

This one thing you need in order to fight procrastination?

Start your work.

That’s the key. It’s all you need to do. Eventually, you’ll be able to tune out your mind’s justifications. Their pull won’t drag you down once you get into your work flow.

But just starting your work isn’t enough of an incentive to stop procrastinating. You already know that procrastination has a strong pull. But you can break free of it. Even on the bad days when you can’t bring yourself to start your work.

So, let’s dive into the consequences of procrastination to get a better understanding of why you should stop giving into your mind’s justifications for it.

You'll never get the time back

Procrastination steals your time. Once that time is gone, it will never come back. Time only moves forward.

So, be mindful of how you’re using your time. What starts out as a few minutes on your phone before work can easily turn into hours. You won’t even notice the time fly by.

Don’t fall into the entertainment trap. “One video” is almost never just one video. It almost always leads to more videos or scrolling through social media.

When it’s time to work, it’s time to get started. Don’t wait until you feel “ready” to work. Just start.

The truth is your mind will most likely never be “ready” to work on bad days. So, if you wait for your mind to be ready, you might not even start working that day.

The longer you put your work off, the longer it will take for you to achieve your goals.

Some days are better than others

Not every day is going to be highly productive. There will be days when you just can’t get stuff done. There will be days when starting your work feels like the most difficult task in the world. And that’s ok.

Don’t beat yourself up about it. Getting mad at yourself for being unproductive is not going to make you want to be productive. This will most likely have the opposite effect. You’ll hate doing your work because your brain will associate this negative feeling with the work itself.

Instead, take each day in stride.

Do your best to be productive each day. Some days you’ll have no problems. Other days, it will feel like you’re scraping every ounce of energy you have just to start working.

On good days, maximize your productivity. Work as hard as you can. See if you can accomplish more things than you initially planned for the day. This will make the potential bad days easier because there will be less work that needs to get done. And since you have the energy on these good days, the momentum will allow you to breeze through the work.

On the bad days, do your best. If you can accomplish everything on your list, that’s a major win. Even starting work on these days is a win. If you don’t accomplish everything, make sure you get the things that absolutely need to get done. Do them first on these days. If you get to your other tasks, great. If not, you can come back to them tomorrow with little to no consequence.

Don’t let one or two bad days ruin your whole week.

Take each day one at a time. Maximize your productivity on the good days. Do the best you can on the bad days.

Procrastination prolongs suffering

The more time you waste procrastinating, the longer you will suffer. You will feel the pleasure of instant gratification, but it will come back to haunt you later. You’ll regret wasting the time you should have spent working.

Regret isn’t a fun feeling to experience.

So, eliminate your regrets by doing your work!

You’ll never regret doing your work. But you’ll always regret not doing it.

“Suffer” now by doing your work when you don’t feel like doing it. This will make you feel better later. And it's less painful than the suffering you feel from regretting not doing your work.

It will be difficult to continue working after starting. But knowing that you just need to get to work will help you stay on track. You’ll build momentum after getting into your work. Each minute you work will get a little bit easier than the minute before it.

Starting is the hardest part.

The work still needs to be done

Procrastinating doesn’t eliminate the work that you need to do. The work doesn’t magically disappear. It doesn’t get crossed off your to-do list without you even lifting a finger.

Nope.

The work is still there. Sitting on your desk or computer. Waiting for you.

It needs to be done. Whether it gets done or not is on you. You must make the effort to get to work on it.

It’s not going to get done without you doing it.

Seems obvious, right?

Yet, it’s so easy to act as if procrastinating magically eliminates the work. Out of sight, out of mind. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

The longer you hold off on doing the work, the longer it sits there waiting for you. More work then gets piled on top of it the longer you procrastinate.

Your workload can drown you simply because of your poor time management skills.

Wrapping up

In the end, you just need to start your work. Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity. When you’re feeling good. After doing a pre-work routine. And so on.

Just start.

Action is the cure.

To win the battle of your mind’s justifications for procrastinating, all you need to do is start your work. It’s simple, yet difficult.

Eliminate your regrets by starting your work.