how to procrastinate productively

Do you procrastinate a lot? I'm sure you do. There are countless videos, books, podcasts, any sort of content about how not to procrastinate and, you know, just get up right away and finish all of your tasks. There are so many of them, and I'm sure that you have already consumed those.

I'm a productivity nerd, and I've probably consumed the majority of those types of content and probably tried like 90 of those methods. But one thing I learned from my experience is that procrastination is in human nature, and it's actually something inevitable. Those gurus, pros, I don't know, experts also procrastinate. We all procrastinate because it's something so natural.

I have so many creator friends. You know we all make content about productivity, how not to procrastinate, and all that. But even while making this content, I procrastinated, and I know that my friends also do procrastinate. If we cannot stop procrastinating, then don't you think that making procrastination a bit effective is the most logical thing to do? If you don't think so, that's totally fine, but I found some tactics and tricks from the books, the methods that I tried, and today I want to share those tips and tactics and the things that I do to make my procrastination more efficient.

So, the most important step of actually making procrastination more effective is understanding what category your tasks belong to. What do I mean by that? I hope you don't just write a to-do list from beginning to the end, you know, all of the tasks you remember, all of the tasks you have to do. I hope you're not just ticking them off. I hope you're not doing it. Because if you are not categorizing your tasks and if you're not deciding which priority group they belong to, then actually that means that you're probably spending quite a lot of time on the things that don't matter, and you probably procrastinate on the things that matter most for your life.

This is the first step that we want to avoid. If you want to procrastinate productively, then we have to make sure that we finish all of the tasks that are high priority. It is important to categorize your tasks into three groups. For each group, we're going to use a different method to procrastinate. Therefore, it is important to categorize your tasks into these three groups if you want to use my method or if you want to just like give it a shot.

So, the first group is going to be the most crucial tasks. These can be tasks that have a deadline, or it can be about your huge goals. You decide your priority of your tasks, but if it has a deadline, I'm sorry, but you cannot decide it. And if you cannot change the deadline, then it should be the most crucial task. For example, for me, any sort of video deadlines, exams, or homework will get into the most crucial part.

Then the second group is going to be the still important group. Still important groups are the tasks that are important for you, but they do not necessarily have a deadline. Probably after a bit of time, they will shift to the most crucial part because you will get closer to the deadline, or there will be some sort of urgency that you need to finish those tasks. They're a bit more chill compared to the most crucial parts. For example, for me, creating an online course is still important, but it doesn't have a deadline. I can actually do it whenever I want. But let's say my income from YouTube and sponsorship dropped suddenly, and I need money, then it's gonna shift to the most crucial task.

The third group is going to be the not important group. Those are the tasks you need to skip. If they're important, they will appear in the still important or most crucial part in the future, so you actually do not need to focus on them right now.

For the first group, which is the crucial tasks, we're going to use a method from my favorite author/psychiatrist, Cava Salvation. Basically, when he has some sort of a deadline, let’s say the end of September, he books a trip a week after that. So, let's say you have a deadline on September 29th. He books for some sort of a trip in the beginning of October. Because in October, in the beginning of October, he's going to go on that trip, he definitely doesn't want to work during the trip. Therefore, he wants to ultimately avoid that situation.

This trip can also be a reward for finishing the crucial tasks, but also you definitely want to avoid that situation when there is a situation where we absolutely want to avoid. More adrenaline levels increase in our body. Norepinephrine plays a role in focus, attention, and it is also a really important part in performing a task and memorizing. So, when you put yourself in a situation where you absolutely want to avoid it, your epinephrine and norepinephrine levels increase, and already preventing is in order, by the way.

So, I mean, he's a doctor, he's a successful author and YouTuber, so he can book a trip here and there when he wants to. But for normal people, it is not something really possible. Also, I'm like a uni student, so it's not really possible for me to book a trip all the time. What we can do, basically, is that we can book something that we like to enjoy. It can be a cinema, it can be seeing your friends, it can be a dinner time, or it can even be going to the gym—like something that you truly enjoy. Just book it so that you do not want to cancel that plan. You absolutely want to avoid it.

If you don't have any hobbies, if you don't have anything you truly enjoy in your life, I'm gonna make a video in the future, so stay tuned. But for the group two, still important tasks, you have still a bit of time to procrastinate. So what you can do in the situation is that we want to change our procrastination style into a more efficient one.

So, the important step, the first step, will be to identify your go-to procrastination. For me, my go-to procrastination style used to be just scrolling on my phone, consuming irrelevant content that I do not care about at all. For example, content about Kim Kardashian. I swear to God there are so many contents out there about Kardashians and Jenners, and once you watch it, your For You page is filled with them. But I do not care about them at all. But once you click it, you're just in a rabbit hole. Therefore, I realize that it's just wasting my time, and I do not want to procrastinate like that.

I just don't want to waste my time, you know? Therefore, I shifted my procrastination style into a more effective one, which isn't reading. Whenever I want to procrastinate on something, I just grab a book and I read it to the point I'm ready to get up and do some work. Distraction levels compared to your phone are much lower. It is not constantly stimulated like when you read a book. The amount of information you get per second is much lower. It's not a high dopamine release activity, which is really addicting.

The amount of dopamine you get from scrolling versus the amount of dopamine you get from reading is so different. So when I want to procrastinate, I either hit the gym, read a book, or call my friends so that we would have a catch-up call and just talk about our lives. After a bit of time, I'm like so ready to work. Other ways for you to procrastinate efficiently can be reading, hitting the gym, cleaning your place, organizing, going for a walk, decluttering, I don't know, taking out the trash or something. But if you want to still grow while you're procrastinating, then probably gym, reading, and also using Brilliant will be the best ways to procrastinate.

What is Brilliant? Let me explain that to you. I am coming from a STEM background because I study medicine right now. I'm currently a second-year medical student, and I know that most of my viewers are coming from either a STEM background or want to have STEM majors in the future. What is STEM? STEM is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

I don't know about you, but for me, to be honest, during my high school years and middle school years, even though I went to one of the best high schools in Turkey, I always adopted the education system that we get because I've always believed that education should be based on understanding rather than memorizing. In most of the schools, at least the education that I got was solidly based on memorization. So, we weren't really understanding what biology, chemistry, physics, or mathematics we were just memorizing so that we could get higher scores.

Brilliant is such an interactive platform to understand STEM topics. Hence, learning is such a better way to understand this stuff. For example, I'm actually writing a code in this lesson, even though I have absolutely no background in coding. Brilliant has thousands of lessons with exclusive new content added monthly, so many courses out there from logic to computer science fundamentals to astronomy to even scientific thinking. If you would spend, let’s say, 30 minutes from the time you procrastinate on Brilliant, you can actually learn so many things.

To get started for free, click the link down in the description below, and the first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription. So, don't forget to check it out! One of the most important tips that I can actually give is to understand and analyze the reason why you procrastinate. Sometimes, actually, it does not come from laziness. It can come from burnout, or you might have ADHD.

Another thing is you might have been really burned out. I really experienced burnout a couple of months ago, and I really can say that it was probably the worst stage of my life. I felt like doing nothing, but I blamed myself for a very long time for being lazy, even though I was actually burned out. Most of us, especially if you're watching this video, you're probably really ambitious about your life. The more pressure we put on ourselves, the more likely we are gonna burn out.

So it is really important actually to care about your mental health. One tactic that I can give is doing a mental scheduling. So basically, you write out all of the things that you have to do in that week. You analyze your most crucial tasks, still important tasks, and not important tasks, and you write them down in your calendar. After writing down each day and after you time block them, then you will see some gaps in your days.

Identifying those gaps and filling every day with one activity that you truly enjoy is so important to actually stay sane. I'm not kidding; if you are going to uni and if you have a business like me, or if you have kids, you know we have so many responsibilities in our lives, and you always feel like there's not enough time. We won't avoid that situation. We actually have to actively do the things that we enjoy each day.

Those activities can be easy for relaxation. It can be going to a spa, hitting the gym or sauna, going for a walk, getting massages, and all these things. Or maybe even just like doing your skincare routine a bit longer. I mean just taking a bit of time, taking a bath, taking a hot shower, like really slow it down. It can be easy like that, you know? Something that calms down your soul and nourishes your soul.

If you do not enjoy, like, let’s say Netflix shows and after a time you're regretting each time, then this activity cannot be considered as something that will nourish your soul. It has to be something that you're like, "Oh, I want to do this tomorrow once again. It felt so good for me." It's reading, hitting the gym, and learning new stuff. So please do mental scheduling in order to avoid burnout.

I really hope that this video was helpful for you, and I hope that you guys are procrastinating a bit more efficiently right now. So see you guys in my next video, and bye! Not prayer, not pro, not pro, ah!