How to Stop Procrastinating: a simple Guide to Mastering Difficult Tasks and Breaking the Procrastination Habit

Action #1: Answer Three Questions
Determine what deserves your attention by answering three basic
questions:
1. What are my personal obligations?
2. What are my priority projects?
3. How much time do I have this week?
Action #2: Apply the 80/20 Rule to Your Schedule
Apply the 80/20 Rule by scheduling as much time as possible for the
actions that have the biggest impact on your professional and personal
life. Be sure to schedule these before anything else.
Action #3: Block Out Time on a Calendar
Block out time on a calendar by scheduling time for your priority tasks,
personal hobbies, and flex time to reflect on new opportunities (or
emergencies) that pop up during the week.
Action #4: Practice Batching and Create “Theme Days”
Practice batching by grouping similar tasks together at a specific time or
on a theme day in which you accomplish a batch of tasks.
Action #5: Set Aside Time for Deep Work
Set aside time for Deep Work, in which you eliminate all distractions and
completely focus on an activity that requires deep concentration.
Activity #3: Build an Anti-Procrastination Habit-
Stacking Routine
Procrastination can be a daily struggle. Even if you have the perfect

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schedule full of activities that you know you’re supposed to do,
sometimes it’s hard to force yourself to take that first step on a
challenging task. That’s why I recommend building a series of actions
into your day using my concept of habit stacking,
which I cover in my
book of the same name
.
The habit-stacking concept is built on the premise that it’s hard to add
multiple new habits to your daily routine. So, instead of trying to
remember them all, I recommend grouping small habits together into a
routine and then completing this routine at a specific time each day. You
can do all this with a simple 13-step process. (
For detailed instructions
on each step, I recommend checking out an overview of habit stacking in
the article “13 Steps to Building a Habit Stacking Routine,” which appears
on my blog
.) For our purposes in this book, however, I describe the 13
steps in an abbreviated form:
1. Identify an area of your life you’d like to improve, and start with a
5-minute block of habits. This will help you create consistency by
making sure that you’re sticking with this new routine. Since this is
a book about overcoming procrastination, I recommend picking a
few of the practices that I mentioned in the previous section.
2. Focus on small wins by picking simple habits that don’t require
much willpower, like taking a vitamin, weighing yourself, or
reviewing your goals. To simplify things, I recommend completing
these habits daily:
Start your day with a quick 5- to 10-minute review session
during which you go over your tasks and appointments.
Identify 2–3 of your most important tasks and commit to
completing these before anything else.
Get started on your hardest task first, preferably the one task
that you know you’re mostly likely to procrastinate on.
Say no when it comes to any task, project, or obligation that
doesn’t perfectly align with the goals that you’ve set for
yourself.
Create a mini habit for challenging tasks by setting a “lowball”

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goal that makes it super simple to get started.
Build elephant habits for ongoing projects by chipping away
at them in 5- to 10-minute increments every day.
Use the Pomodoro Technique to work in a series of sprints for
large, challenging projects.
Take action on small tasks by applying the Two-Minute Rule
and single-handling most of your daily tasks.
3. Pick a time, location, or combination of both for when you’ll
complete How to Stop Procrastinating stack. Ideally, I recommend
completing this routine to start the day because it will set the tone
for what you accomplish and how you address those random
emergencies.
4. Anchor your stack to a trigger, which is an existing habit you
automatically do every day, like showering, brushing your teeth,
checking your phone, going to the refrigerator, or sitting down at
your desk. This is important because you need to be 100% certain
that you won’t miss this trigger.
5. Create a logical checklist, which should include the sequence of the
actions, how long it takes to complete each item, and where you’ll
do them.
6. Be accountable by using an app like
Coach.me
to track your
progress and frequently talking to an accountability partner with
whom you share your breakthroughs, challenges, and future plans.
7. Create small, enjoyable rewards that help you stick with this
routine and hit important milestones. These rewards can include
watching your favorite TV show, eating a healthy snack, or relaxing
for a few minutes.
8. Focus on repetition by never missing a day. In fact, it’s crucial that
you stick to the routine—even if you need to skip one or two habits.
Consistency is more important than anything else.
9. Avoid breaking the chain by eliminating any excuse for missing a
day. Create a doable daily goal that can be achieved no matter what
happens, and don’t let yourself be talked out of it. Perhaps you’ll set

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a small goal requiring you to only complete two or three habits. The
important thing is to set a goal that can be achieved even when you
have an off day.
10. Expect the occasional challenge or setback. In fact, it’s better if you
assume they will happen and then make a plan for how you’ll
handle them. If you get stuck, review the six challenges that we just
covered and implement the advice for your unique obstacle.
11. Schedule the frequency of a stack by committing to this routine as a
daily, weekly, or monthly series of actions. My suggestion is to get
started with a simple daily routine, but when you want to build
more habits, add a weekly or monthly task.
12. Scale-up your stack by adding more habits and increasing the total
time of the routine. But be very cautious with this step. If you notice
that it’s getting progressively harder to get started (i.e., you’re
procrastinating), then either reduce the number of habits or ask
yourself why you want to skip a day. The more you understand
about your lack of motivation, the easier it will be to overcome it.
13. Build one routine at a time, because each new routine increases the
difficulty of sticking with your current habits. Only when you feel
that a stack has become a permanent behavior should you consider
adding a new routine.
That’s it—thirteen steps to build a stack that will help you overcome the
daily challenge of procrastination. I won’t lie and say it’ll be easy 100% of
the time, but if you stick to these steps, then you can overcome any
challenge that comes your way.