We look at bloggers who get up at five in the morning and do a thousand tasks a day, and we get jealous: “How come they have so much energy, and why can’t I do it?”… Relax, it’s normal. Living the slolife movement is cool, too. But we want to go to the gym, paint oil paintings and write three pages of fanfic a day, and slipping into procrastination is not.

We suggest that you choose the right tactic from our planning schemes, so that you have time to do things and lie in bed.

1. Choose a vector, not a goal

Everyone says how important it is to set goals and go for them. But time goes by, the initial enthusiasm disappears, the exciting and unknown becomes routine. You just burn out: you get lazy, you put things off, and you quit, because you can’t achieve the perfect result right away. And in order not to do bad things, you prefer not to do them at all.

For the sake of experimentation, we advise you not to set a specific goal, but a vector in which you will move. In other words, don’t “learn English, Spanish, and Japanese”, but “pump up your foreign language skills”. This will not only allow you not to get frustrated and not to give up, but also to jump over the top. Yes, yes, without an end goal you can do even more than planned!

The main thing is to be flexible and open to new opportunities. Is there a German study group at school? Great, go for it! Grandma wants to know what kind of birthday present you want – a book or money? Choose a book: it will give you new knowledge, and money is more likely to pay for unnecessary knick-knacks.

It’s a pretty free-wheeling technique where you’re essentially swimming with the current, grabbing at random opportunities. So watch out: sometimes you have to stop and see if you’re going the right way, so you don’t drift too far away.

2. Follow the rule of three goals

Want something more systematic? Catch this kind of technique, without endless lists and details.

What to do:

• Set 3 goals for the year;
• Now 3 goals for the month;
• Set 3 goals for the week;
• and 3 more goals for the day.

How to work with this?

At the beginning of the day, do the three things you have planned for today. After completing the minimum plan, you’ll be ready for the goals for the week: proceed to them, if there is strength and time. Then the same for the month and year – this is the plan maximum. What do we get as a result – every day you perform a minimum of cases and already well done. This motivates you, because it is easier to get down to bigger tasks.

3. Don’t waste your time

We all ponder how to keep our time at work to a minimum. Tasks are many, time is short. You can do everything if you are Caesar – that is, you do everything at the same time. However, as we know, there are only a small percentage of such people in the world.

Don’t rush to read a book with one eye and watch a photography course with the other. But you can listen to informative lectures when you cook: it saves time, and you won’t be so bored while cooking.

4. Switch on the normal indifference

This technique is perfect for the lazy, because it helps you focus only on what’s important:

1. Start by writing down literally ALL the tasks on a piece of paper, from “mopping the floors” to “making a million on your blog”;
2. Then discard all the unnecessary. To do this, evaluate each task against the following criteria: You won’t be doing it anytime soon – in the “score” column, already doing it and deadlines are not burning – in the “normalize” column; the task is important to you or the deadline for its completion is approaching – in the column “bring it to perfection”;
3. And now cross out all the to-do’s marked “score”. Just cross it out, and don’t let your conscience bother you.

Then take some time to do the things you need to normalize. If it doesn’t work or gets lazy, leave them alone for a while. And move on to the main thing: what you need to bring to perfection. In this column are the priority tasks worth devoting time and effort to.

5. Concentrate on what’s important tasks

For the previous “radical” point, there is a softer alternative. In the morning or in the evening, choose the things you’re doing today. Now break them down into smaller tasks, like the elephant technique. Write down in detail what exactly will need to do that day, and do it. Such tactics will allow you to concentrate only on the necessary things and will not allow you to get bogged down.

6. Keep your biorhythms in mind

Do not believe that you necessarily need to get up early, because productivity in the morning is greater. Owls, for example, do not work effectively in the morning, that’s nature. Build your own schedule around when you are most productive:

• Lark – first part of the morning;
• Owl – early evening;
• Sparrows (neither of them) – mid-afternoon.

The same goes for rest. Do not beat yourself up if you like to snuggle in bed till 12 or fall asleep after eight. Work out and relax when it’s convenient.

7. Make a “pin-up calendar” and set reminders

Some people are motivated by success and some by burning deadlines. If you’re one of the latter, print or put a calendar on your phone screen saver and mark all your deadlines. Keep it in plain sight and remind yourself of things to do. Also set yourself notices, such as: “Turn in coursework in 9 days!!!” or “The room won’t clean itself, Mom will be back in 2 hours!!!”. Until you kick yourself, no one will 🙂

As you can see, there are many time planning options for lazy people like us. Choose the technique that best suits you and get to your goals!