Since I’ve started writing longer pieces of text such as articles and essays I’ve
always come up against a roadblock.
Concentration.
I would always lose my focus on the subject by “taking a break” which would consist
of going on my phone or watching a YouTube video for a bit.
This “break” would go from the planned 5 minutes to 10 then to 30 and so on, going
down the rabbit hole of scrolling through social media or clicking on a chain of recommended
videos on YouTube.
I’ve read many articles and studies on why we procrastinate and how we can stop it, but
I think that we all know how to, but are just too lazy to do it.
What pushed me to actually implement the ways that many recommend stopping procrastination
was my overwhelming inner guilt of wasting time where I could be productive, which has
only recently just hit me.
Now I will try to help others how I have helped myself by outlining some very easy ways to
come out of this state of mediocrity and to achieve more than the status quo.
I’ve found that my phone is my biggest time sink.
Since getting an S10 I’ve been able to access a digital well-being tab in its settings which
shows how much time I spend on my phone and a break down by app on which app I spend the
most time on.
I was shocked to find that some days, at its peak, I spent upwards of 12 hours on a combination
of apps.
This is what initially triggered my guilt and pushed me to find ways to be more productive.
To combat this I’ve come up with a simple solution.
Throw your phone away!
(Not literally!)
By this, I mean place your phone somewhere around 1–2 meters away from your workspace.
This should be close enough so that you are not tempted to go on it to “browse for a
few minutes” but also close enough so that in case you need to use it for something productive
you can reach it relatively easily.
By making it harder to reach your phone, you’re going to start to break the habit of immediately
going for your phone when you are bored or during downtime, which will also have long
term benefits towards your attention span and mental well-being.
YouTube, Netflix or any other video streaming platforms are my second biggest time sinks.
Ending up on YouTube and going into the rabbit-hole of videos has wasted an uncountable amount
of time for me.
Just by looking at the new “Time Watched” section that you can find if you click your
profile on the mobile YouTube app, I can see that in the past week I have watched 27 hours
and 9 minutes of YouTube.
On average it takes me around 2–3 hours to write a good quality text which means that
in this time I could’ve finished 9–12 medium-sized texts or 3 heavily researched
texts.
And this is with the time I’ve spent in only 1 week.
I’ve found that the previous point of removing my phone from my workspace helped greatly
with this as my phone was one of the main gateways I had to YouTube.
To combat my YouTube use on my computer I open a completely different browser window
when I start a project which I force myself to use for the sole purpose of researching
and writing the project.
This would also work for other platforms such as Netflix.
By separating my leisure and work browser tabs I’ve become more focused on the task
at hand as when I finish it, I can close the work tab and access my leisure tab.
Lastly time management.
I’ve always been a believer in flexibility when working.
If I had a rigid time slot to get work done I would always bend the restrains to my liking.
This turned out to be very bad for my work ethic as the time that I would allocate myself
to work in would be wasted.
I’ve had to break this habit by adapting and now I try to allocate work slots of around
1 hour throughout the day.
Having a 1-hour work slot means that I don’t get discouraged and lose morale before I start
working, as 1 hour isn’t too much time to spend working.
This allows me to take a break if I feel burned out after or to continue if I feel inspired
or finish my train of thought.
Using these three tips won’t directly make you into the most productive writer, editor
or whatever you aspire to be.
You still need to direct this new supply of time into something productive, as well as
being determined enough to push past the initial “boredom” and reflex to take breaks and
procrastinate.
If you push past the initial barrier you will greatly appreciate your newfound productiveness
and will be an overall better person for it.