Occasionally being lazy is perfectly normal. We all feel lazy sometimes, but the feeling passes in a day or two. Getting lazy may not seem to be a problem until it persists for many days and weeks and starts to happen frequently.
When laziness starts to affect your daily routine, your job, and your life, it's time to realize you're stuck in a cycle you have to break out of. If laziness is overwhelming you, you can follow a few tips to break its cycle.
1. Aim for Realistic Goals
The absence of goals is like going on a journey without knowing the destination. When your purpose is undefined, and your direction is unclear, it's easy to get stressed and become lazy. Your first step to being active again is to set goals. While you set them, keep them realistic instead of perfectionistic.
Aiming too high and making unrealistic projections or not setting any goals can fuel burnout, leading to laziness and a lack of motivation. So, plan what you hope to accomplish this year, then divide it into chunks and decide what you will do to get there on a monthly or weekly basis.
A set of clearly defined objectives will keep you engaged, and while you will fulfill your commitments over the course of a week or month, you may break the cycle in between.
It is easy to lose track of your goals when you write them down on a piece of paper. So if you want to stay organized and on top of things, you might want to consider using apps like TickTick. With this handy task management app, you can plan your goals, drag them through different stages based on your progress, and then put the completed goals in separate columns to track your accomplishments.
Download: TickTick for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
2. List Your To-Dos
After defining your long-term goals, it is essential to break them down into smaller ones. Making to-do lists regularly helps here. When dividing a big task into smaller, defined steps, it becomes easier to accomplish them one at a time. By doing so, you will neither lose your focus nor have difficulty keeping up with your long-term objectives.
When you can clearly see how much time you have for the day and the remaining tasks you have on the list, it's natural to increase the pace. When you speed up, you will get your inner motivation out, thereby reducing laziness to a great extent. This is how making a to-do list can break the cycle of laziness in your life.
You can also make a to-do list in the TickTick, but Todoist is also a good choice. With it, you can plan your whole day by including your daily schedule, organizing your tasks for the day, and setting reminders to keep yourself on track.
Download: Todoist for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
3. Break Up the Tasks and Set Alarms
Once you plan your agenda for the month and begin following your to-do list, setting alarms for each task can also help you beat laziness. Whenever an alarm sounds while a task remains undone, you are forced to step up your efforts out of hidden guilt. As a result, even though it takes a bit longer, you complete the task at hand in the shortest amount of time.
In addition, setting time limits for each task makes you more productive and helps you stay on top of your workload. In this way, you can evaluate your performance regularly and compare it to keep your focus in check. When you lose track, the alarm sound will automatically help you get it back. Furthermore, if you get the work done before your alarm goes off, you can take short breaks to treat yourself a little.
However, manually setting alarms every once in a while can be tiring, and it's possible to lose your attention if you do this. If you want to prevent this from happening, consider using an application like To-Do Reminders With Alarm.
The app allow you to set reminders for all tasks or the most important ones seamlessly. Once the allocated time has expired, notification and alarm will alert you. As a result, it can help you overcome your laziness and make you more disciplined.
Download: To-Do Reminders With Alarm for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
4. Keep Track of Your Streaks
Tracking your progress is essential to achieving your goals on time. This not only keeps you organized, but also boosts your motivation. Recognizing your efforts and seeing you've accomplished your goals ignites your confidence, encouraging you to do more. In addition, when you are lacking in pace, it serves as a reminder to speed up. In either case, tracking progress is beneficial.
The best way to track your progress is to make a checklist, go over it regularly, and mark the tasks as completed when you are done. An urge to mark another task as complete may be the key to breaking your laziness cycle, and the psychological effect it will have on you is immeasurable. As you witness your plans succeeding every passing day, how can you feel lazy to break this streak?
While many apps allows you to track your progress with checklists, Todoist, which we used to make up the to-do lists, can also do this. Using different goal tracking templates, you can easily keep track of your priorities and keep your progress in check. Keeping track of your to-do lists and achievements in the same app simplifies things.
5. Keep Distractions to a Minimum
Distractions are your biggest enemy, which can easily lead you astray from your plans. When you lose focus, things begin to pile up and make you feel frustrated and lose motivation in yourself, resulting in you falling into laziness. Getting distracted is pretty common and happens to all of us, but how good you avoid them and how quickly you get back on track matter the most.
The first step is to list down what distracts you and then ask yourself, how can you avoid it? While working on a computer all day, those who want to avoid being distracted can block the social media and video streaming websites that distract them away with different site blocker extensions.
BlockSite is a handy extension that lets you add all distracting websites and block them all at once. Focus Mode can easily be turned on and off so that you can either focus on your work or roam freely on the internet as needed.
Download: BlockSite for Chrome | Edge | Safari | Firefox (Free)
If the nature of your distractions is different, such as working in a noisy environment, urging to cuddle your pets, or gossiping with the surrounding people, then the best possible way to get your work done is to find a quiet room.
Be Productive and Break the Cycle of Laziness
The tips in this list should help you overcome your laziness and get active again. Other things you can do to feel energized and enhance your focus at work include practicing mindfulness, eating healthy, exercising regularly, and meditating. If you follow all the tips given here, you will not have any trouble breaking the vicious cycle of laziness.
Is it easy to get distracted while working remotely for you and your team? Think about switching from video conferencing to text-only communication, and you'll be amazed at the difference it will make to your productivity.