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Deep down, all of us are probably procrastinating something, right at this very moment.
Maybe it's a work project that doesn't seem useful or involves a hundred tedious tasks. Maybe it's organizing an area of your home that you've meant to deal with ever since you moved in.
Whatever it is, procrastination is a common productivity deterrent. What's worse, procrastination only serves to make us more stressed out. So it's always best to face your fear head-on and check that nasty item off your to-do list, but how can we actually make ourselves do it, increasing our productivity in the process?
We researched the top 10 ways to get — and stay — more productive, based on science, and turned them into this easy-to-read interactive site. Take a look at three of the best tricks to stop procrastinating now, and for the rest of the productivity hacks, check out the useful interactive infographic.
Few areas of productivity science are more documented than the benefits of a humble walk. For example, we know that employee performance and productivity increases with use of a treadmill desk. Compared to sitting, scientists at Stanford found that "any form of walking could increase creative thinking by about 60%."
And consider this mind-blowing example from Murray Newlands: “On average, each task was taking around 7 business days to complete. After we started doing our daily walks for about a week, we noticed that average dropping to 6 days, then to 5 days after about 20 to 30 business days of having daily walks 2x a day.”
Walks are about as close to productivity magic as you can get. If you're struggling to face a project, try going for a walk first. You'll emerge feeling more creative and efficient — and ready to tackle that obnoxious task.
Depending on the weather where you live and your proximity to the outdoors, the greatest barrier to going for a walk is often simply getting started. But once you lace up your walking shoes and get your heart pumping, the benefits are incredible.
To incorporate more walks in your workday, try having walking meetings, walking for half of your lunch break, walking the stairs when the outdoors aren’t favorable, or walking during conference calls when your primary role is listening.
If you’re afraid your boss won’t like it, just point to some of this research. And then point to the benefits and how much more you’re getting accomplished because you took a damn walk.
Trying to complete a dreaded task, drown out the sounds of your desk mate’s conference calls, and keep your spirits high all at the same time? Music may be just what the psychologist ordered.
Music releases dopamine, which helps us feel more positive and pleasant. According to Dr. Teresa Lesiuk, that’s important: “When you’re stressed, you might make a decision more hastily; you have a very narrow focus of attention. When you’re in a positive mood, you’re able to take in more options.”
And in one study from the University of Birmingham, England, music helped workers perform repetitive work more efficiently.
If you find that listening to music distracts you from work (and you may already be distracted enough as it is), try music without lyrics. Nature sounds, classical, or electronic are tried and true workplace options. You can also try adjusting the volume so that the sounds are neither too loud, which may make it difficult to concentrate, or too quiet, which may allow outside noise to creep in.
When procrastination is a problem, it's time to trim the bad habits that lead you to that place of procrastination. Take an honest look at your productivity over several weeks and uncover where you’re spending unnecessary time. Conduct your productivity assessment over an average period — not right before a big vacation or the end of a quarter.
You may find that you’re losing time:
Attending less-than-valuable meetings
Responding to unimportant emails
Summoning up the motivation to start difficult projects
Checking news sites or social media
Fighting the urge to take an afternoon nap
All of these productivity-killers are actually nothing more than bad habits. And bad habits can be broken with a little science. Charles Duhigg is a reporter for The New York Times and author of The Power of Habit. Duhigg examined hundreds of productive people and behavioral studies to distill habit-changing into four steps:
Identify the routine.
Experiment with rewards.
Isolate the cue.
Have a plan.
Depending on your own reward interests and cues, you can experiment with hundreds of ways to rid your workday of bad habits and replace them with new ones (like focusing more on deep work or taking more strategic breaks). As Duhigg says, “Sometimes change takes a long time. Sometimes it requires repeated experiments and failures. But once you understand how a habit operates – once you diagnose the cue, the routine and the reward – you gain power over it.”
