Do It Today: Overcome Procrastination, Improve Productivity, and Achieve More Meaningful Things

Do you want to know the secret? I’m finally doing
something that I love.
That’s it. Work is not bad at all — I love to write, that’s why I
do it 7 days a week. I didn’t like my previous jobs,
businesses that I started, and I sure didn’t like to study for
classes I had zero interest in.
Previously, I thought that you procrastinate because you
have poor time management skills. That’s why I’ve tried
every productivity hack, system, or software, but they are
all useless when you compare it to doing meaningful work.
Do you want to get stuff done? Do stuff that matters.
Productivity hacks get a lot of attention. And very often,
people present with time-management tips as a solution. In
a way, time-management reminds me of speed reading.
Many of us want to speed read to finish more books in less
time. But why? I enjoy reading—I don’t want to spend less,
but more time on reading. It seems like we want to skip the
actual work and only focus on the outcome.
It’s like Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle Is The
Way, 
says in his article about speed reading
: “If you find
yourself wanting to speed up the reading process on a
particular book, you may want to ask yourself, “Is this book
any good?” Life is too short to read books you don’t enjoy
reading.”

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I think you can apply Ryan’s quote to your life and career as
well: 
Life is too short to do work you don’t enjoy.
No matter
how many productivity hacks you try, you won’t produce
more if you’re not passionate about what you do. If you find
yourself regularly procrastinating, you may want to ask
yourself: 
Am I passionate about my work?
If the answer is no, you know what you have to do — find
something that you are so passionate about that you don’t
want to procrastinate for one second. We all know that time
is finite, so why not behave accordingly? If you know that
you have limited time on this planet, why waste it?
“We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet
have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives
are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing
to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We
are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as
though there would be no end of them.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I’m a believer of ‘do what you’re passionate about’, but I’m
also a believer of ‘do what you’re good at.’ The sweet-spot
is right in the middle — a job that you love, and are also
good at. Ramit Sethi, author of 
I Will Teach You To Be Rich
,
says that work and passion go both ways. He 
says
 that
when we get really good at our job, we often become
passionate about it.
I’m not saying that productivity tips are useless. In fact, 
I’ve
written about productivity tips
 that improved my output.
What I am saying is that the best solution for procrastination
is doing meaningful work.
And procrastination can be a sign that you’re doing
something that’s not meaningful. Don’t let procrastination
become a habit. After all, the worst procrastination is

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putting off your dreams and goals. If you’re waiting for the
right time, Benjamin Franklin says: “You may delay, but time
will not.” If you don’t listen to me, listen to him.

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