How I (try to) Deal With Procrastination And Distractions

An Opinion by Aiko

Ever wake up with your first thought being that you would be really productive today? No more procrastination, no more distractions, just working on what you have to finish or do for a good part of the day. Even the prospect of working hard by yourself and being able to focus sounds so appealing. And then after, you would get to relax and do whatever! You know, watching your favorite TV show, drawing, sleeping, shopping, or even just thinking about life while spacing out. It all sounds like a perfect plan. But at least for me, once I actually get to work, I find that it’s harder than it seems to just stay focused and finish my work. 

There are constant distractions, such as my phone, which I can’t bear to leave outside of my room, or my bed, which makes me want to sleep, or even my own laptop, which I have to do work on but keep getting distracted with, making me want to relax and just laze off as usual. And even though the thought of studying hard sounds so nice and motivates me mentally, I can’t bring myself to physically do it because of laziness. Thus, procrastination happens; I miss some scheduled meetings, have to unnecessarily stress out on what could have been finished way earlier, and so on. Seeing this happen a bit way too often, I wanted to find a solution or at least some methods that would help me with these bad habits.

First off, my phone. Because of social media and applications such as Discord and Instagram, I was constantly checking my phone for messages or new notifications. It has always been fun and interesting to talk with people online and also just scroll on social media, but suddenly, it became a problem that I had to deal with. So I put my phone on DND (do not disturb) mode (more often) where I wouldn’t be able to receive notifications unless I unlocked my phone and looked, and bam! many distractions went away. (sorry if I don’t reply on social media for a while ahem) Same with my laptop. I found that even though I enjoyed talking to my friends, at the end of it, it would often leave me drained and with not enough energy to do my work, so I wanted to be able to first finish whatever I needed to do before being able to freely talk with my friends. Oftentimes, I was really busy so this ended up with me ‘ghosting’ sometimes, but I promise I don’t mean anything by it (and I know I’m not the only one lmao, but if you’re reading this promise I really don’t TT; I def reply in the end tho!); because I value the people I talk to, I want to be able to return messages and talk with the same energy as them, and it surprisingly takes somewhat a lot of time and energy. Anyways, it overall really helped that I couldn’t see whatever people were texting about or doing immediately and be distracted by them while trying to work. 

Secondly, my room/bed. I had this one really bad period of time where I would unhealthily take short like five-ten minute naps really often every day, because I would procrastinate my homework and get distracted until it was too late and already like 11pm, when I would start feeling sleepy and my brain would shut down. Especially when my bed was right next to my workspace, making me want to do nothing but lie there and sleep (/contemplate life). And the worst thing was, I would keep ‘snoozing’ which made my sleep schedule all the more horrible and really didn’t help me wake up to do my homework. I would sleep really late and during the day, fall asleep during classes and my brain would not function properly throughout the week due to this. In short, it was really unhealthy and it sucked, because I couldn’t control my sleepiness nor my brain turning off. So I researched and found that, in fact, 20-40 minute naps (aka power naps) plus no! snoozing! are what would really help me wake up more refreshed. In addition, I would try to cut down on these naps as much as possible and try to finish my homework sooner. Lastly, because sometimes I would feel sleepy in my own room, I would move to a new/different place, such as the workspace where my mom would also work, to keep my focus. I found that working with friends could maybe help motivate you too.

Thirdly, during my research, I found a few tips that I thought might be helpful to me and people who want to focus overall. In fact, I learnt a few things today: flame meditation to help you focus (5-10 mins), binaural beats music to help you focus (too; make sure it’s pretty loud to drown out the noise), and OneNote, to help organize notes and your to-do list (Notion can do that too)! Even though music doesn’t work that well for me (it can make me feel sleepy/tired or hyper depending), I’ve heard it works for other people. My second to final piece of advice to myself and anyone reading this: form good study habits! It takes ~21 days to form a habit. So keep practicing and studying a bit every day, and you will improve. All your effort is going to be worth it in the end :) And don’t forget to take breaks, because doing work/studying/whatever you need to do will tire you out sometimes, and relaxing (going outside for fresh air!!!!!) will help you stay on the right track. 

That’s all from me lol (gotta manifest these tips for next schoolyear). A little insight into my daily life I guess; P.S. I’m watching Extraordinary Attorney Woo and she’s so cute. 

Until next time!