10 Powerful Journal Prompts To Stop Procrastination - How I Beat #Procrastination Using Journaling

If you are struggling with procrastination and can't finish your work and think about it for days or weeks like I sometimes, you are in the right place…

I'm like a limour :)

Limours are cute animals, but they sleep for about 16 hours daily.

I am not limour, and I do not sleep 16 hours a day.

But sometimes, I procrastinate even more, not only for 16 hours but maybe a few days and weeks.

And nobody explained resistance and why we procrastinate better than Steven Pressfield in his book, the War of Art.

And he said like this:

“The more resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art, project, or enterprise is for you. And the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it.”

So, as I said, I am a great procrastinator, but at the same time, I know myself very well.

That's why I developed special techniques, prompts, and questions I ask myself in my journal.

I answer these prompts and questions, and they help me to get unstuck from my not-productive state and get back from procrastination to productive work.

And I just finished my journal session on procrastination in my journal.

And I want to share with you these eight great questions.

You can ask yourself them in your journal, and they will help you get unstuck from procrastination and get back to productive work.

So just in a moment, I will share it with you.

But before that, I want to tell you a few tips.

There are eight prompts that touch on your procrastination from different points.

It's not a linear approach.

These questions are different, and they attack your procrastination from different angles.

And this will help you definitely get unstuck and get productive again.

The first question for journaling for anti-procrastination is:

What positive experience will I not have if I don't do this work? Why did I plan to do this task initially?
This question has two sides.

One is a carrot, and one is a stick, and together they are in one question.

People often are more scared to lose something than to gain.

For example, it's one case, if I go on the street and find a $100 bill.

But if I lose a $100 bill, it's much more painful for me.

It gives me much more struggle because people don't like to lose.

And when you write your answers to these questions, you begin to remember why did you start to do this work initially.

Because if you don't do this work, you will lose something.

You will lose some opportunities, something to do in your life that is not possible without doing the work at your hands.

In my case, I wrote the answer to this question:

I will be guilty if I do not work, progress on my goal, and stay on the same point. No progress, no complete joy of accomplishment. I planned it because I needed to become free and independent.

And now, let's move to the next question.

And the next question is:

What is holding me back from starting right now?

And it's a great question because I struggled to film this article for you.

After all, I procrastinated.

I was procrastinating on writing a procrastination post :)

And that's why it's a good question to answer in a journal.

So here is my answer:

I'm afraid there is so much to do to accomplish this work that I don't know where to start. Also, I didn't plan this work and this article.

So I was not prepared.

It's a good case to answer this question because often, we have some emotion that stops us from going forward.

It's not because we are lazy.

It's not because we don't want to do the work.

But because internally, in our minds, hearts, and emotions, we are afraid we may fail to do this work well.

So it is a question to ponder in your journal and ask yourself: what is this thing that is holding you back from pushing forward with this work?

Maybe you are not prepared enough.

Or perhaps you didn't plan this work.

Maybe you are afraid you will fail even if you do a good job.

By the way, you can download these questions in a pdf format for free.

There are eight questions and two secret anti-procrastination questions that are not a part of this post.

Now, let's move to the third question, and it sounds like this:

Did you have similar procrastination with other tasks? How did you overcome it? Describe a feeling of relief when you accomplished such tasks.

It's a great question to ask yourself.

When you have procrastination, maybe you had a task similar to this one that you are going to do, that you already had done before, and you were also procrastinating, and you successfully did it.
In this case, you felt relief:

“At last, I did it! I was struggling, struggling, but at last, I did it!”

You can remember past events.

And you can trigger emotions and neural pathways that will help you to remind yourself of what you did in the past and help you start doing the work at hand now.

Here is what I wrote in my journal.

Yes, I had such an experience just a few weeks ago. I just turned on some good music, relaxed a bit, and made my first step, not worrying about the next steps. And after I did that, I was thrilled and was feeling internal peace.

We can forget about our past successes and concentrate on the hard work we need to do right now, forgetting about what we did before.

And this question can trigger your mind to remember such experiences and push you forward to do the current task.

And before moving to the next question for your anti-procrastination in a journal, I will share a few quotes with you.

“The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself,” - said Rita Amit.

“Procrastination is a grave in which opportunity is buried” - unknown.

The following anti-procrastination question is:

Is my procrastination a sign that I need to rest? If so, then what kind of rest?

We forget that we are human beings, that we can get tired, that we can get burned out…

Here's my answer:

Yes. I was working really hard. I forgot that my body needs its attention. I just want to go to nature. Relax there, and meditate a bit. Read my exciting book, and then I will return to work.

This is an important question because if you don't rest and your mind is constantly under pressure.

It's not possible to continue working all the time like that.

Let's move to the following anti-procrastination equation:

Am I not doing the work right now because I don't see myself successfully doing it? If yes, what is holding me back from success? Can I control my results? Do I need more quality work to do?

If we don't know how to do the work or are not experienced in it, we can sabotage ourselves and not do the work at all.

Here is a simple example: I had a task to create a blog on a new programming language.
And I was postponing it, holding myself, and sabotaging it for several weeks.

Why?

And the answer is that I was not experienced with this programming language.

That's why my subconscious mind was telling me that I could not do this work successfully.
And I was holding myself back from doing it.

Simple like that...

And after I had learned this programming language for a few days, I started doing the necessary work.

The following prompt for your journal is about motivation because motivation is crucial.

If, for example, you need to do work that is really important for you but really hard to do simultaneously…

And if you have a strong motivation and a visual picture of what you want, if you see why you want to achieve these results and what you will get from doing this work, then this can influence your motivation and energy to do it.

That's why take a journal and answer this simple question:

What opportunities and pleasant bonuses will I get after doing the work at hand?

And my answer to this question was like this:

I will get one step closer to freedom. This will allow me to do what I want when I like it and with whom I wish to do it.

And this is a powerful question.

It can motivate you, trigger the energy required to accomplish your work, and replace procrastination with productive work.

Before moving further with our journaling prompts, I want to describe how Steven Pressfield talks about resistance:

“It is what keeps us from sitting down and doing our best work. Most of us have two lives. The first life will live before we turn pro, and the second life is after turning pro. And resistance hates it when we turn pro - when we start doing and achieving what we really want. Resistance cannot be seen, touched, or smelled but can be felt. We can experience it as an energy field, radiation from work. It's a repelling force. It's negative. Its aim is to show us away. Distract us, and prevent us from doing our work. If you take resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get…"

And the main takeaway from here is that the power to make change is in your hands.

And all you have to do is to believe that it is possible.

Before moving to the next journal tip to fight your procrastination, I want to tell you about a cartoon I watched many years ago when I was small.

I don’t remember the cartoon's name, but it was about a horse and a boy, and they were in the forest.

And it was a little bit dark around, and the boy was afraid.

He didn't know how to make the next step because it was dark and there were a lot of trees around.
So he asked the horse for advice on what to do with his fear.

And the horse answered:

“Do you see the next step you can make? Do you see the next tree? Can you see the next object right before your eyes?”

The boy said:

“Yes, I see.”

The horse said:

"don't worry about all the steps we need to take through this dark forest (p.s they were both scared). Just make one small step."

And this advice is connected to the next question for your journaling session.

And it sounds like this:

What is the one small step I can make to facilitate movement in the direction of my task or goal?

And my answer:

I can write 500 words of my article today, and tomorrow I will edit it and submit it.

Just think about what one step you can do right now to fight your procrastination.

The next journal question to fight your procrastination:

What are my two or four biggest distractions that make me unfocused and stop my progress at work? How I can eliminate them from my life?

My answer:

I check my social media too often. So I can't concentrate intensely on my work. I get dopamine from it. I can schedule a time when I only work and do nothing else. I will turn off the phone or put it in the other room.

And here are some of the most inspiring quotes about procrastination I want to finish this post with:

“There is nothing so fatal to character as half-finished tasks.”

— David Lloyd George.

“How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never’.”

— Martin Luther. 

“A perfect method for adding drama to life is to wait until the deadline looms large.”

— Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby

“Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases, and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.”

— Attributed to Wayne Gretzky