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Using Spreadsheets to Beat Procrastination
How they can trick you into doing more
I’m going to admit to something that you may find strange. Up until very recently (and, for the record, I’m nearing thirty) I’d give myself stickers as a reward for achieving my small, everyday goals. And you know why I did it? Because it worked! Seeing a line of stickers grow on a checklist or march across a calendar motivated me and kept me on track, making me happier and more productive. The only reason I stopped? Because I switched to doing the exact same thing with colour coding spreadsheets.
Sure, it’s not quite a tangible or as pretty, but as someone who tends to misplace paper, has really messy handwriting, and will sometimes forget physical things exist, it does the exact same mental trick.
I’ve written on Medium before about my tips for being productive when you have a short attention span like me (oh look, a shiny!) and one of my suggestions there is that to-do lists are important! I need set systems in place to keep myself on track and these days a spreadsheet is the way to go to stop myself from spiralling into procrastination. Or, more specifically, multiple spreadsheets.
I have two main spreadsheet formats that I wanted to share in the hopes that they may be helpful. I have way, way more covering a lot of different…
