Solve Your Procrastination Problem by Dividing Your Day Into Quarters
We tend to think of a day as that one time span, a finite period during which you can either win or fail. But you may find that you have fewer bad days – and more good ones – if you start thinking of one day as something that can be divided into smaller chunks of time. If you tend to get frustrated with seeming setbacks piling up on time, think of your day as four distinct quarters, each one rife with opportunities for success.
Visualize your day like a basketball game
If you’ve watched the NBA playoffs, then you understand that a lot can be done in a short time , even if it seems that you have already lost. And while sports analogies may seem overly simplistic, thinking of your day as four distinct neighborhoods can help you stay on track as time goes by.
This concept was illustrated by author Gretchen Rubin , who, as noted in a recent Reddit post , described it like this:
Instead of thinking that you’ve ruined the day and thinking, “I’ll be back to work tomorrow,” try to think of each day as a set of four quarters: morning, noon, noon, evening. If you spend one quarter, you will be back on track in the next quarter. The failure is small, not big.
The idea here is to accept that failure is a given. No one walks through life (or embarks on a career path) without stumbling unexpectedly. By thinking about the current day in terms of quarters, you normalize the inevitability of failure and the notion that you still have a chance to recover because there is always another quarter to catch up . Obviously, reorienting your thinking in this way takes a fair amount of effort, since real success will require you to get used to allocating and investing your efforts over the four quarters of your day — morning, noon, noon, and evening. But it also gives a sense of empowerment, as it is up to you to decide which quarter is most significant or least important and rank them accordingly. That way, even if you’ve wasted a quarter of today aimlessly scrolling through the web while important work is left unattended, the entire day won’t be wasted.