How do i stop procrastinating?

[needhelpprocrastination]

This is going to sound trivial but it is starting to badly effect my life and my work.
I am self-employed, have lots of clients and have to put together different types of projects for them on a commissioned basis. That means there isn't a set routine or flow to my days, weeks or months. I do love what i do.

I just massively struggle with procrastination. I often work very very late at night or very very early in the morning because i have wasted whole days and weeks staring blankly at a screen.

Some of what i do is creative so i sort of excuse my lack of ability to get started on the fact that i need to think creatively and that doesn't always happen to order.

The reality is that i don't seem able to do anything or finish anything until i get myself in to such a last minute panic that i then work furiously at the wrong time of day, get very very tired, probably don't do the best job but get it done by the skin of my teeth.

Then rinse and repeat.

I have kids at school and in wraparound care and so i have time mostly to do stuff in normal hours. I just can't.

Can anyone help?

Is it always the last minute panic that causes you to do the work required?

Were you the same at school with homework?

My work is very similar. I’ve always been like this to some extent. But being freelance I can sort of “work from bed”. But that isn’t the best way to organise myself, especially now I have a child. My work is always “live” & I work across time-zones so I need to be prepared for contact at any time. I think I’m just tired of it all, I no longer have the energy! Youthful edge was very much a part of the job when I first started this career… Creativity is not linear!

I was the same for a long time even when I was office-based and it was causing me a lot of stress. It got even worse when I started wfh full time. I researched a tonne, tried all sorts of techniques, the simplest one which really stuck was a form of the pomodoro method where you just start, and focus for just 20mins before taking a short break (all timed using a timer) - then go back to it. Just start. There's something in the psychology of only committing to a little burst of work, not a whole task / day / project. It does depend on what you do a little bit. Also I thrive on being organised (time blocking etc) so maybe won't work for you.

And although there's no set routine to your days, maybe you need to construct one so you start to train your subconscious into "these are work hours" even if you're not doing your best creative work within all of those hours?

Yes and yes. I was the Queen of the 5am essay start.

I think there’s a lot of truth in that! I do fantasise about winning the lottery on a regular basis but that’s not going to happen.

I always thought that would be the thing that would work for me as well but I just don’t seem able to be productive in those work blocks. It’s so frustrating.

The problem is not that I cannot be in work mode, just that I will spend hours staring blankly or fiddling around unproductively. I can’t give myself permission to be ‘off’ so that means I don’t get the work done, don’t have a constructive break and don’t rest.

i felt like this and was diagnosed with ADHD 3 years ago.

however, even without ADHD people can procrastinate over activities and decisions that make them uncomfortable for some reason. perfectionism and anxiety often run alongside.

are you procrastinating tasks that are easy, that you feel confident doing and where there are no difficult decisions?

are you procrastinating over tasks where you don't care much either way about th outcome?

Same here. Made sense when I received my ADHD diagnosis.