{"id":48,"date":"2006-10-17T00:27:56","date_gmt":"2006-10-17T07:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodhabitsgoodstudents.com\/blog\/?p=48"},"modified":"2018-04-18T01:42:09","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T17:42:09","slug":"how-to-stop-procrastinating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/2006\/10\/17\/how-to-stop-procrastinating\/","title":{"rendered":"How to stop procrastinating"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lifehacker<\/a> cites “the goal-setting web site 43 things<\/a>“, where it appears that the Number 1 goal of their readers is to “Stop procrastinating.”<\/p>\n

This is a nice idea, but it’s not a useful goal. It’s like saying, “My goal is to stop being lazy”, or “My goal is to do better in English”. Goals like these lead nowhere.<\/p>\n

Instead, set goals that refer to specific activities that can be repeated daily. Activities that can be counted or measured. I agree that procrastination is a big problem, but when do you procrastinate? If you put off packing a lunch until morning and then oversleep, set a goal like “My goal is to pack my lunch before I go to bed.” If you put off doing homework, set a goal to “Start homework the day it’s assigned” or to “Hand in every assignment on time”.<\/p>\n

Then keep a daily written record, and set alarms or reminders to keep on track. Find a partner, or ask your parents to help remind you\u2014most of us do better if we’re not trying to build new habits all on our own.<\/p>\n

But don’t get stuck trying to “stop procrastinating”!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lifehacker cites “the goal-setting web site 43 things“, where it appears that the Number 1 goal of their readers is to “Stop procrastinating.” This is a nice idea, but it’s not a useful goal. It’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-habits","category-setting-goals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":365,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericmacknight.com\/goodhabits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}