How to Stop Procrastinating: a simple Guide to Mastering Difficult Tasks and Breaking the Procrastination Habit

Buffett’s reply was surprising:
“No. You’ve got it wrong, Steve.
Everything you didn’t circle just became your ‘avoid at all costs’ list. No
matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve
succeeded with your top five.”
Great advice, right?

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Well, I can tell you that the 25–5 Rule 
really 
works when you apply it in
the real world. In fact, I’ve been following it for over a year and it’s had an
amazing effect on my life—specifically when it comes to preventing
procrastination.
After making the commitment to focus only on five things at a time, I’ve
had more business success and personal happiness than I did when my
life was filled with dozens of weekly projects, obligations, appointments,
and piles of “someday” tasks.
As an example, my 
current
five focuses (in order of priority) are:
1. being present with friends and family;
2. completing an IRONMAN race;
3. writing and marketing my books;
4. increasing web traffic to my blog, DevelopGoodHabits.com, and
converting these visitors into email subscribers;
5. fixing and updating sections of my home.
What’s powerful about the five-project focus is it’s easy to make decisions
about my daily tasks. Each day, I review the items on my 
Todoist app
 and
any new requests for my time. If the activity 
doesn’t
match one of these
five goals, then I immediately say no (which is a concept that we’ll talk
more about in 
Step #4
).
Now, it’s not written in stone that you concentrate only on five projects.
You could have a few more or a few less. The important thing is to
proactively think about your time, commitments, and where you spend
the most time. If every one of your actions is directly aligned with a goal,
then you’ll feel excited to do it, which is the ultimate procrastination
killer.
So how do you identify these five projects?
Well, the first step is to examine your core values. If you match your
internal beliefs to your current obligations, then it’s not hard to
exclusively focus on the activities that make you happy. So, let’s talk
about that next.

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