Tips to Avoid Procrastination - Relaxed Procrastinators

Procrastination can be a major problem for any individual that is attempting to prepare for a particular exam, interview, or other similar situation. However, there are certain techniques that an individual can use to avoid the temptation to procrastinate. In order for an individual to find the best techniques for his or her situation, however, it is important for an individual to identify the underlying cause that has led the individual to procrastinate in the first place. In other words, is the individual procrastinating to avoid the stress associated with the task or is the individual procrastinating because he or she cannot handle the excessive stress that he or she feels as a result of the task?

If the individual is procrastinating to avoid the stress associated with the task, then the individual is a relaxed procrastinator and the first thing that the individual should do is to establish a list of realistic priorities and stay with those priorities. This means that the individual should try to answer priority questions such as "is the party really more important than the paper?" In most cases, the paper should be more important than the party and the individual should make sure to complete the paper before he or she goes out to party. This does not necessarily mean that the individual should never party, but rather that the individual should use partying as a reward for completing a task rather than as a substitute activity for an important task. Secondly, the individual should plan out when he or she needs to complete each task that the individual has set as a priority and make sure that these tasks are completed at the time that he or she sets for each task. In other words, the individual should make a schedule and follow that schedule as closely as possible. This allows the individual to construct a realistic plan of how to accomplish the tasks that he or she needs to accomplish. Finally, the individual should try to find things about the task that he or she likes or at least can tolerate and the individual should try to think about those aspects while the individual is working on less pleasant parts of the assignment. Basically, the individual should try to find reasons that the assignment is not as bad as he or she believes, which will make even the most unpleasant task seem less offensive and help the individual complete it.