I heard recently that it's believed that humans now have a shorter attention span than goldfish. Can you believe that? Well, actually I can. With social media, television and technology - distractions are all around us - so it's increasingly hard to keep your concentration. So I've compiled my top five sure-fire ways to stop procrastinating, which are easy to implement and hopefully help to keep you on the right track.
Turn it off
To stop getting sucked into watching endless TV, record the shows you want to watch. This way you don't have to sit through the endless adverts and only watch the one show you want to, rather than starting to channel hop and getting drawn into more
Press go
Start things. I've said it before, starting is really the biggest hurdle, so set yourself a short time of 15 minutes on a task. This way you'll at least have begun - and sometimes that can lead to you completing it without even breaking a sweat.
Unwelcome distraction
Find out what's stopping you. If you've been staring at your computer for the last hour and not done anything - what have you been doing? If it's social media, log yourself out. If it's web browsing, can you turn off your internet? If you are getting distracted by the same things, you have the power to stop yourself. I believe in you.
Break it down for me
If it's a huge task, you're not going to know where to start. So work out the steps it will take you to get to the ultimate goal and do them in bite size chunks. It also means you'll have more little jobs to check off on your to do list along the way.
We need to talk
Tell people about projects your doing. This opens up discussion and allows you to think out loud, which can lead to receiving some insights or even someone wanting to collaborate with you on a task. Even the simple action of telling someone, means the next time they see you, they might ask - " how are you getting on with it?". And that in turn will motivate you to give the people what they want, and do something.