When you don’t do something you said you would do, you’re hurting your confidence. Procrastination is a great example of that.

If you said you were going to work on something for an hour, and then you open up social media for five minutes and an hour goes by, you need to find a new time for the task. You feel dejected, and your brain is shocked at the sudden disappearance of dopamine. 

This is a perfect time to go deeper into what caused the procrastination: 

• Was it related to the task—did you experience anxiety or a sense of perfectionism? Did it feel like too much pressure to get started?
• How can you nudge yourself into taking a small step next time? Can you set up a guideline or rule where you can work for 15 minutes and then take a short break?
• Do you need some more resources? Are you tired? Do you need to reschedule this kind of work to a part of the day where you have more energy?
• Do you need to learn to talk to yourself differently?
• If you rely on urgency for motivation—such as deadlines—is there another source of energy you can turn to?

It takes just a few minutes, and it’s good to answer these questions while the procrastination is fresh. As you figure this out, you can start putting a plan together to manage it next time.

More importantly, the next time that you need to work, you’ll have a set of guidelines to turn to. You know that procrastination will be manageable. You will grow to trust yourself because you know you’ll be reliable and you’ll show up.