There’s a reason that one of the most successful sneaker companies of all time has: “Just do it!” as their tagline. It’s because it is actually sound advice. Why? Well, it’s because procrastination can be a real problem in all sorts of areas of our lives. Stopping being as productive or effective as we might. But when you are working from home procrastination can become at arm form.

There is always something to take away your attention from your work. But this can be damaging as you get seriously behind with what you are meant to be doing. So read on to find out how to ‘just do it,’ and beat procrastination below.

Get ahead

One way that you can beat procrastination and just get on with things is to be smart about the way that you work, and get ahead where you can.

What this means is that you try to address some of the work you have to do the next day, during the current day. While this sound like you are overworking yourself, in fact, you will average out at doing the same amount, but you will also give yourself the psychological advantage of feeling like you are ahead.

This makes it a lot easier to get going in the morning. You don’t feel like you are rushing through everything too, and this can help you actually enjoy what you are doing more as well. 

Give yourself breaks

Another easy way to beat procrastination is to realize that us humans can’t work consistently for long periods of time. That means no matter how sincerely you scheduled in 10 solid hours of work at home, you just aren’t going to be able to do this without having some down time.

You can either fool yourself into thinking that you are working for those 10 hours and then catch yourself daydreaming, or checking Facebook. Or you can do the sensible thing and schedule breaks into your day, to give you some time to relax and unload.

Of course, a lot of folks find it hard to take breaks, especially when they are freelancing at home. So to help you set a timer for 10-15 minutes and to do something totally different such as playing with one of these fidget cube toys. Or even get up and away from your desk and making yourself a cup of coffee.

Do it for 10 minutes

Procrastination can be likened to the force of inertia in physics. That is it takes time for you to build up speed at any given task. That is why it’s so hard to start anything. But there is a way of using this phenomenon to your advantage.

All you have to do is to commit to doing a task for 10 minutes. Then, when the ten minutes is up,  check back in with yourself about how you feel about the task.

You will often find that it doesn’t seem so boring or insurmountable anymore. Which may just give you the impetus to continue on and complete it?

This post has been contributed by Ryan Gatt, it may contain affiliate links.