Avoid Procrastination and R.E.A.P. the Benefits of Proactivity

For me, procrastination often stems from feeling overwhelmed by the amount of things I need to get done. That said, procrastination has a way of feeding off itself—the more a person procrastinates, the more things need to be added to a long list of to dos, Thus it becomes more stressful  to face those to dos  and, subsequently, the more one might procrastinate. While it might be difficult to change one’s emotional reasons for procrastination, it is possible to use strategies to help one move from procrastination to proactivity. In this blog, I will discuss some strategies to help you R.E.A.P the rewards of facing procrastination head on:

Ready Yourself by Creating a To Do List

To do lists can be a step towards proactivity since they force a person to think about and document what they need to do. It’s a good idea to create a to do list even for more mundane activities (like grocery shopping) if a person has a tight schedule, such as students who, in addition to working on their degrees, might also be working full-time and or have other responsibilities. However, many people who create to do lists might not actually follow through with them because, in creating the list, a person can feel overwhelmed, thus perpetuating procrastination thinking. While I used to create just one big list, I learned that I was less likely to get things done because I felt overwhelmed. So, I started to create daily lists.

Evaluate Your To Do List for Priorities
What I learned from creating daily to do lists is that it is equally important to prioritize the list according to high, medium, and low priorities to include how time consuming each task is within a given priority level. This way, smaller, less time consuming lower priorities don’t build up, and larger, more time consuming priorities are gradually worked on and not left for last. For instance, I usually take care of both high and low priority emails as they come since I can often quickly respond to them as needed, then I start working on larger projects that are both time sensitive as well as more time consuming.


Adapt Your To Do List When Necessary
While it is important to work towards completing everything on a to do list in a timely, daily, manner, it is also necessary to be flexible enough that you can adapt your to do list if and when necessary (such as when a new, immediate priority needs to be added to your list). It’s all about balance and continually working on tasks while making any necessary changes. So, maybe I don’t get to all of the low priority emails I wanted to in one day, but I will be able to add them to a new day as long as I keep working on my to do list and focusing on high priority tasks first (and do low priority tasks that are quick) so I stay on track in order to have time to delegate a low priority task that are time consuming

Pamper Yourself
People often underestimate or overlook pampering themselves with self-care as a high priority. Yet, providing enough “me” time helps ensure that a person stays on track because it helps reduce stress which is another important reason for to do lists—working on tasks and completing them in a timely manner means that when it is time to relax a person is not worrying about what they need to get done. Setting time aside for self-care is important for proactivity; however, many people might not set aside such time because they have a lot to do, which brings me back to my introductory point— stress can lead to procrastination and procrastination has a way of feeding off itself and creating more stress which is self-sabotaging for one’s proactivity.

So, I suggest creating a daily to do list, prioritize that list into time consuming and less time consuming high, medium, and low priorities, adapt the to do list when necessary, and always leave time for pampering yourself to feel good about all you have accomplished!


I hope you'll join in on the conversation and tell us: What are some tips you have for combating procrastination?

Veronica Oliver is a Writing Instructor in the Walden Writing Center. In her spare time she writes fiction, binge watches Netflix, and occasionally makes it to a 6am Bikram Yoga class.

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