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

Exercise #4: Set Your Quarterly S.M.A.R.T. Goals
We often procrastinate on tasks that don’t provide instant gratification.
However, if you attach each task to an immediate goal, you increase the
odds that you’ll be motivated enough to get started. The simplest way to
do this is to set S.M.A.R.T. goals for every quarter (i.e., three months)
instead of the yearlong goals that most people set.
S.M.A.R.T. stands for:
Specific;
Measurable;
Attainable;
Relevant; and
Time-bound.
You can create these quarterly goals by completing a simple six-action
exercise:
1. Focus on five projects and commit to focusing only on these
activities.
2. Create goals with an immediate deadline (I suggest every three
months).
3. Use a weekly review to track and adjust your goals.
4. Turn each focus into a project by clearly identifying all the steps you
need to complete.
5. Review your goals to remind yourself of the long-term benefit of
taking action on the activities you might want to procrastinate on.
6. Evaluate your goals every quarter and use this feedback to make
more effective goals for the next three months.

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STEP #4: SAY NO TO COMPETING
PROJECTS AND OBLIGATIONS
Saying no is another part of the anti-procrastination process that will be
difficult to implement. Again, not because it’s hard to do, but because it
requires a deep level of commitment that most people don’t have when it
comes to their personal goals.
In this step, I’m asking you 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.
What does this have to do with procrastination? Well, there are three
reasons why this step is an important part of the process.
First, by now you know that the feeling of overwhelm is often the biggest
cause of procrastination. When you feel like you have too much to do
daily, it’s easy to push off the difficult stuff because you don’t have the
physical or mental bandwidth to do them well.
Second, it’s also easy to fall into the trap of agreeing to the requests for
your time from other people simply because you don’t want to disappoint
anyone. We all want to be liked, so we’ll agree to something—even when
we know it’s something we don’t have time to do.
Finally, it’s easy to “tinker” on projects that sound fun, but aren’t part of
your five core projects. This is a dangerous practice, because whenever
you say yes to something new, you’re basically saying no to the projects
that you’ve already identified as being important.
Just think back to the list of 25 items that you brainstormed in
Step #2
.
While you picked 5 core projects, you also had to say no to the other 20.
The problem here is that they are 20 items in which you have some
personal interest. Unfortunately, on some level, they can be the biggest
distraction of them all because you’ll often feel the occasional urge
(possibly induced by a bit of guilt) to focus on these activities.

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For instance, when I did the 25–5 challenge, there were an additional 15
items that I included on my list. Each was a compelling project that I’d
love to do, but when compared to the five that I selected, I chose to put
them off:
1. Create a physical product.
2. Launch a podcast related to habits and personal development.
3. Create an information product related to habits and personal
development.
4. Scale-up my existing product that teaches self-publishing.
5. Master Facebook ads.
6. Go on a “podcast tour” to promote my book Habit Stacking.
7. Start playing the trumpet (again).
8. Get into CrossFit®.
9. “Level up” my cooking and meal-preparation efforts.
10. Start gardening around my house.
11. Section-hike the Appalachian Trail.
12. Join more local Meetup groups and expand my social circle.
13. Learn to speak Spanish.
14. Improve my photography skills.
15. Join a local real estate investing club.
Sure, some of these ideas are farfetched—they are bucket list ideas that
sound good, but I’m currently unsure of how they’ll fit into my schedule.
On the other hand, there are a few ideas that I would love to do now, but I
recognize that time spent on them is time taken away from the five
projects that are important to me.
So, by now you know it’s important to say no to anything that conflicts
with the core projects in your life.
The question is: “How do I say no without ticking people off or getting

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into trouble at work?”
Well, you can do this by building five practices into your routine.