Hello, hello and welcome back to the english with neil learn english podcast.
How is everyone doing today?
I'm pretty excited because this is the first episode of 2023 and in this episode i'm going to talk about how to stop procrastinating.
So when you procrastinate, it means that you have a job, or sometimes we like to say task.
You have a task to complete.
It can be cleaning your house or studying or doing something for work, but you put it off.
You say, I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it tomorrow.
And then tomorrow comes and then you say, no, no, I'm going to do it tomorrow for sure.
And you don't do it.
And this keeps going on and on and on.
That is called procrastinating.
A person that procrastinates is called a procrastinator.
So in college, I was a big procrastinator.
I used to always finish my work at the last minute.
It caused a lot of stress.
And then my mother, she saw me with this problem and she gave me a book.
And this book was called Do It.
D-O-I-T.
Do It.
And it was by a doctor named James R Sherman.
And I took a lot of things from that book.
But in this episode.
I want to talk a little bit about why people procrastinate, and then I'm going to give you some things that you can do to stop procrastinating, if you are a procrastinator.
So some of the reasons why people procrastinate is one of confusion.
Confusion means that you're unclear about what to do.
And this usually happens when You have too much work to do.
Have you ever had that feeling of just having too much work, having too much homework or having too many responsibilities?
You don't know where to start, so you're confused.
And so you just put it off.
You say, yeah, I'm going to do it tomorrow.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
And tomorrow turns into tomorrow.
And then tomorrow again turns into another tomorrow.
And you never stop.
Excuse me.
And you never finish.
So one reason why people. procrastinate is because of confusion.
Another reason why?
Because of lack of priorities.
Lack means it's there's not enough in priorities, means that something is important.
So if something isn't important, If you don't view this thing as important, you'll never finish it because it's not number one on your list.
For example, taking a shower for most people is important.
It's a priority.
Or brushing your teeth.
This is a priority because you don't want to smell bad and you don't want to have bad breath.
So taking a shower and brushing your teeth are priorities.
But let's say, for example, cleaning your house, cleaning your house takes time.
So that may not be a priority for some people because it takes too much time.
Another reason why people procrastinate is because they want to escape.
Escape means they want to run away.
They want to run away from all of their problems because there's too much.
They're overwhelmed.
They're hoping that their problems will just go away.
And so they want to escape.
And these are some reasons why people procrastinate.
And I remember feeling like this college a lot.
I probably experience all of these, and so now let's talk about how to stop procrastinating, because we have all we've all procrastinated before right, But now how do we stop?
So I'm gonna give you four tips that I got from this book, Do It.
And if you wanna stop procrastinating, Maybe you can try one of these tips and maybe they can help you.
So number one is to know yourself.
Know yourself.
Understand yourself.
Understand your moods.
Are you a morning person?
Do you feel good in the morning?
Do you have a lot of energy in the morning?
Or are you a night person?
I am more of a night person.
I have a lot of energy at night.
So if I have a job to do in the morning, I probably won't do it because I'm not a morning person.
Have more motivation to do it at night because that's when I have the most energy.
Or for example, knowing yourself in your environment.
So I'm self-employed.
So I have the freedom to work from home or to work in a cafe or to work in my office.
But I choose to work in my office because that's when I can focus the most.
If I'm at home, if I'm working at home, I'll probably get nothing done, because the TV's here, I have food, here I have my couch, and it's just too comfortable.
So I know that I do not work well at home.
So by knowing yourself more you know your triggers.
A trigger means something that goes off.
So for example, a trigger may be like sweets.
If you're trying to go on a diet and you see sweets, that's like a trigger, it's like a light switch goes off in your head.
And you want to get the sweets.
So knowing yourself.
If you know yourself better, you'll have an easier time realizing why you procrastinate.
OK, so number one is to know yourself better.
The next one. how to stop procrastinating, this is a really good tip.
And Dr. Sherman suggests that we visualize completion.
That means picture yourself.
Imagine yourself completing the job.
Imagine yourself completing the task.
If you're procrastinating about cleaning your house, Imagine that your house is already clean.
Imagine yourself vacuuming.
Imagine yourself washing the dishes.
Imagine yourself washing the windows.
Visualize yourself completing the task.
So this will help you motivate, this may help motivate you to stand up and start moving.
Now the next thing is to think about the benefits of completing the task.
So you're thinking about completing it now.
Think about how you will feel after you complete the task.
After you clean your house.
You feel good, You'll feel fresh.
Your house will be more organized.
And this will motivate you to want to do it and to not put it off.
Another way, kind of the opposite of thinking about the benefits.
Another thing you can do is think about the consequences of not doing the task or not completing the job.
So let's say you are procrastinating about going shopping.
And you think man if I don't go shopping then I won't have food to eat.
If I don't have food to eat I'm going to have to go out and get fast food and spend money.
So it's probably cheaper if I go shopping.
You see, so you can motivate yourself in two ways.
You can think about the good things, the benefits of completing the job, but you can also motivate yourself by thinking about The consequences of not completing the job.
Okay.
And these are just four ways that you can motivate yourself to not put off tasks.
So number one again is to know yourself.
By knowing yourself more, you can understand why you procrastinate.
Number two is to visualize completion.
See yourself completing the task.
The next thing you can do is think about the benefits.
Think about the good things about completing the task.
And then you can also, number four, think about the consequences of not completing the task.
And try some of these things out.
Maybe number one will work for you.
Maybe number four.
Just try it out and and see if it works.
So these are some ways that you can stop procrastinating.
I hope they helped you.
And I want to end this episode to say thank you for listening to today's podcast and I look forward to speaking with you in the next one.
Take care everyone and talk to you soon.
Peace.
