Time wasting | 5 ways to beat procrastination and boost your productivity

Procrastination is the silent productivity killer within the workplace. In fact, the situation has only grown more dire since a vast portion of the workforce are now from home.

That time spent gazing vacantly into space, or browsing the internet in the office has evolved since the household chores all workers have been putting off linger just a few feet away. Make no mistake, taking ten minutes to fold the laundry when a deadline looms or hoover the carpet can very easily turn into hours or even whole days lost to procrastination.

And what’s worse, procrastination isn’t a one-time issue. The act of procrastinating creates what some business analysts call a ‘doom loop’. You have an anxiety inducing project you’re putting off so you procrastinate and tell yourself you’ll come to it later. Later arrives, and now you’ve left it late, you’re even more anxious, and so you push it off again. And again, and again. Finally, you’ve passed the deadline and you haven’t even started – making the act of completing the work all the more stressful, making you even more likely to procrastinate again when another stressful task comes along.

And it doesn’t boil down to being lazy; procrastination is so often actually about finding the right headspace over having no motivation; a deadline is motivation enough to want to get it done. So, by telling yourself that you’re being lazy by not doing the work, you’re addressing the wrong issue.