Have Done Nothing Productive All Day? Here’s How to Fix It
If you have a lot of things to do, but you have done nothing productive all day, you might feel really bad about yourself. Maybe you feel like you can’t possibly get everything done now. But not to worry, as long as you still have some time left, you still have a chance.
I used to procrastinate for years (more about that here), so I definitely know what it feels like to see that it’s already evening and you have barely done the bare minimum. The feeling of guilt and failure is awful. It’s not fun to disappoint yourself day after day.
But the good news is that you still have a chance. You can still feel good about yourself today. Just read this post and you will be ready to get to work.
Ask yourself why exactly you didn’t get anything done
You can’t start doing better if you don’t know what’s wrong. Ask yourself what is the real reason (or reasons) that you didn’t get much of anything done today. After that, you’ll know the solution.
Here are some common reasons you might avoid work and pretend you don’t have a long list of things to do. I’ve also given easy solutions to these problems.
1. You have too much to do and you’re overwhelmed
Solution: Only do what you absolutely have to do.
2. You don’t know what to do
Solution: Write a list of everything you need to get done and then a to-do list for tonight.
3. You have too much going on in your head
Solution: Start by journaling to get everything you’re thinking about out of your head. Then ask yourself if there is anything you can do right at this moment about the problem you are thinking about. If not, give yourself permission to not worry about it for the rest of the day.
4. You waste too much time on a certain activity
Solution: Set a timer for 30 or 60 minutes during which you work. After that, you take a break and then get back to work for another 30 or 60 minutes.
5. What you have to do is really boring
Solution: Set a timer for 15 minutes of work, take a break, then get back to work.
6. You haven’t done much in a long time and now you feel too lazy to do anything
Solution: Force yourself to start working and it will slowly get easier. Laziness fuels more laziness and activity fuels more activity.
Whatever your problem is, there is always a solution to it. Don’t let yourself be lazy when you have important things to get done. Just start working. Next, I will share some more detailed advice on how you can get started when you feel like you can’t get it all done.
What do you absolutely have to do
If you’re feeling lazy or you think there’s no way you can do everything you should get done today, focus on only the things you absolutely have to do.
This means you have to prioritize the boring things with a deadline over other important things that can wait a little longer. If you have to write an essay today, just do it. If you have to make a phone call, just dial without hesitating anymore.
Procrastinating just makes you feel worse and it makes you waste much more time on the task you don’t want to do than necessary.
What are easy or fast things to complete
If you don’t have a big deadline today, you’re in luck. You have a bit more choices and you don’t need to be as stressed. It’s still important that you try to be as productive as you can because that’s what will get you ahead in life.
The most painless way to get started is to do the easiest and fastest to complete things first. Maybe you need to send a short message to someone or throw a load of laundry in the machine. Perhaps you need to simply choose a topic to write about.
Don’t make these kinds of easy things any harder than they need to be. Just get up and do them and you’ve probably already done most of them in half an hour.
Don’t ask too much from yourself
If you’re in a rut, it’s hard to get out. Focus on making steady progress and getting done what absolutely has to get done. If you’re not at your best today, it’s ok. You can’t change overnight. It’s all about making slow progress and becoming better and more productive over time.
If you keep up with this for a couple of weeks, you will start to gain confidence in your ability to get things done in time. That’s when you can start asking more from yourself.
It’s also essential to always keep in mind that progress is far more valuable than perfection. Focus on getting things done, not on doing them perfectly.
Set a deadline
One reason that you find it hard to get started is that you feel like you have so much to do it’ll never end. This is a completely understandable feeling since most of us have too many things to do in the first place.
To feel like work isn’t an endless pit that will keep you in its grasp forever, set yourself a deadline. If it’s 6 pm right now, set a deadline for 9 pm. That’s when your workday will be over and you will get to relax just the way you like (and it will be well deserved).
Just work till then and before you know it, it’s time to kick back by watching Netflix and doing absolutely nothing useful.
Come up with a plan on how to continue
Today obviously wasn’t the best day, since you had a hard time getting started. Simply knowing that you often procrastinate or leave things till the last minute can cause a lot more stress than you even notice. This is something you need to fix.
What you need to do now is to come up with a plan to make sure this won’t keep happening. This will relieve stress since you will know that you have a plan and you can trust that you get everything done in time.
You need to have some sort of a system that ensures that you always know what are the things you need to do and when, how you will structure your day so that you don’t end up procrastinating till the evening, and what you will do if and when you feel lazy or like you have too much to do.
Prepare for tomorrow morning
To make sure that you will feel ready to tackle your to-do list tomorrow, create a schedule for the morning or write a detailed list of what you will do once you get out of bed. This way you’ll start the day off right and you are much more likely to get things done.
When you wake up, make sure you don’t get right back to your old habits by checking your phone or playing a game if that’s what you tend to do. How you start your day matters.
If you get up right when you wake up, get ready and then start being productive without thinking twice about it, you will have a much easier time getting everything done.
Again, activity fuels more activity.
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As you can see, even if you haven’t done anything productive yet, it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t change that right away. It may not be fun, but it is easier than you think. Just get started and see how far you can get. And don’t let yourself give up too easily!
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