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

Action #4: Turn Each Focus into a Project
Think back to the eight reasons that people procrastinate. One of the
biggest roadblocks you’ll face is not knowing how to get started with a
task. When you have “write report” on your to-do list, it’s easy to put it off
because this action item doesn’t have an obvious first step.
That’s why you should turn any multi-step activity into a project—with
tasks that can be completed in a short block of time.
The advantage of creating a project list is you never have to guess about
your next action. Instead, you can use a key technique from 
Getting
Things Done
in which you continuously ask one question whenever you
work on a project: “What’s my next step?” Then, once you’ve identified
this action, you make forward progress on one of your five core projects.
Yes, on the surface this might seem like simplistic advice. But I think it’s a
very effective strategy, because people often procrastinate on ambiguous
tasks when they don’t know the next step they need to take. For instance,

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the book you’re currently reading required over a hundred separate
actions to go from idea to publication. That’s 
in addition to 
the habit of
writing for 30–90 minutes every day. Here are just the first 12 steps that I
have on my project list that I need to complete before I even write the
first word:
1. Think of a basic book idea (look in my book “idea garden”).
2. Go to Amazon to gauge the profit potential of a book idea; use 
the
rule of #30,000
 (described on Authority Pub) to see if it’s popular
topic.
3. Poll my audience to identify their specific challenges with this topic.
4. Create a folder for the book project on my desktop, in 
Evernote
, and
in 
Todoist
.
5. Identify the hook and basic premise for the book.
6. Dedicate two weeks for brainstorming talking points.
7. Identify seven target keywords.
8. Research the topic, including reading books, reviewing 
Blinkist
 and
using Google to find quality references.
9. Do a book “brain dump” to brainstorm every possible idea to
include.
10. Review these notes by identifying potential chapters and fleshing
them out.
11. Sort the index cards into a logical order.
12. Map the outline.
As you can see, this partial project list is a mixed bag of actions that take
from a few minutes to a few hours of effort. But the critical thing to
remember is to have a central hub for every project with clear actions for
each step of the process. Done correctly, this project list will become an
invaluable companion you’ll refer to throughout the day.
It’s not hard to create a project list. In fact, you can get started in five
minutes with two great tools that are completely free—Todoist and

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Evernote.
Todoist and Evernote each have a specific benefit, so let me give you a
brief overview of both, and then we’ll talk about how they can be used to
assist your efforts at maintaining the projects in your life.
Evernote
is a cross-platform tool that allows you to take notes, capture
ideas, and organize this information into a file structure that’s based on
your personal needs. You can use Evernote to create simple text-based
notes, upload photos, record voice reminders, add videos, and clip
specific web pages. Anything that can be digitized can be uploaded to
Evernote.
I like Evernote because it can act as a central location to capture any
important idea or thought: a strategy you’d like to implement, a website
to bookmark, or a time marker for a multimedia file. Basically, whenever
you come across a piece of information that’s important for your long-
term success, it should go into Evernote.
It’s easy to get started with Evernote. My recommendation is to create a
“notebook” for your skill and then add notes for each reminder or idea
that pops into your head. 
An article on Evernote titled “Organize With
Notebooks” can walk you through the entire process
.
Todoist
is the perfect tool for creating and managing project lists. I prefer
this app over others, because it allows me to maintain multiple projects
and store tasks for each one while also creating simple daily lists that
don’t cause me to feel overwhelmed.
Like Evernote, Todoist isn’t difficult to use. Simply create a project for
your skill, add tasks for that project, and then schedule these items into
your weekly routine. To get started, 
the Todoist blog provides a quick
start guide
.
If you feel confused by either of these apps, I’ve created a simple video
that walks you through each one. You can access these videos on 
the free
companion website
.