How Students Beat Procrastination: Digital Scorecards
This is part of my How to Stop Procrastinating series.
Hey, friends!
Can I make a confession? I love setting goals. I love imagining a future where I’ve achieved my BAG (Big Audacious Goal). I love visualizing a world where I’ve lost 30 pounds, I’ve published a novel, and where I’m fluent in Spanish, Italian, Russian, and even Irish Gaelic.
Guess what I don’t love? Following through. I don’t love hard work or tedious tasks. (Let’s be honest: “setting goals” is just elaborate daydreaming.)
But I stumbled upon a solution.
It sounds ridiculously simple, but here it is:
1. I focus on one goal: publishing a book
2. I set a small goal: one writing sprint per day
3. I track progress in my digital scorecard.
My scorecard is a Google sheet with two columns: Date and Sprints. And it includes a “Total Sprints” tally.
Every morning, before my kids get up, I complete a 25-minute sprint. Sometimes, I do a second or third, but my goal is to do at least one. (I love watching the “Total Sprints” grow!!)
Since I started tracking my progress, I’ve written more words. Like A LOT more. I used to waste so much time reading articles about writing, watching videos about writing, and thinking “deeply” about writing. These activities all felt important. Felt productive.
But they weren’t. They were—you guessed it!—procrastination.
That all changed when I created my scorecard. Now, I’m focused and probably write 3X more words each day. (That might sound like a lot, but it’s not considering how unproductive I used to be.)
In the last three months, I’ve been very consistent and only missed one day. (It was Christmas, and I purposely kept my laptop shut.) Every other day, I completed a sprint. Even on Thanksgiving. Even on my birthday.
For the first time, I’m making measurable progress toward publishing a book.
Apply this to studying
If you struggle with procrastination and go days (weeks?) without studying, I recommend setting a tiny goal to study for 5 minutes every day. (I call these 5-minute sprints.)
Track this goal with a digital scorecard. Every night, log how many sprints you completed. (I created a phone reminder so I never forget.)
The goal is to complete one sprint every day. The goal is never to see a “0” in that sprints column.
Our scorecard keeps us honest about how we’re doing. We often have a rosy view of ourselves. We often say, “Sure, I procrastinate, but it’s not that bad.”
The scorecard is a much-needed reality check.
Common Questions
How many goals should I start with?
Just one.
Create a goal, and track it for a month. Build a habit of tracking your progress day after day. This process sounds easy, in theory, but I was surprised by how hard it was. Some days, I just don’t feel like updating my scorecard, especially when I didn’t achieve my goal.
So don’t overcomplicate things with multiple goals. Pick one and be incredibly consistent.
Does it have to be digital?
No.
Some people prefer the tactile feel of pen and paper. They post their scorecard on their refrigerator, where they see it three times a day. If this is you, that’s totally cool.
Do whatever works for you.
How big should the goal be?
Small.
Prioritize consistency. What could you accomplish in 30 days if you were incredibly consistent? What could you accomplish in a year?
Set the bar low enough that you never miss a day. For me, that’s one 25-minute sprint.
But you might start smaller. One writer friend uses 5-minute sprints. These tiny bursts of work help her overcome the resistance and build momentum. And with momentum, we can accomplish anything.
So choose a small goal and never miss a day.
Can I track minutes instead of sprints?
Sure.
Personally, I track sprints because each one represents a unit of work. My little brain quickly translates 200 sprints into roughly 100 hours of work. But my brain doesn’t instantly know how much work 5,000 minutes is.
But that’s me. Experiment until you find what’s right for you.
Will this work for me?
I don’t know.
This strategy works really well for some people and not at all for others.
Personally, I was surprised at how well it worked. (I’m achievement-oriented, so this is an effective tool.) But I couldn’t have predicted how well it would work. Instead, I tried various strategies to overcome procrastination until I found one that worked.
And that’s my advice to you. Treat your life as an experiment. Make a digital scorecard and create a phone reminder, so you don’t forget to update it. Experiment for a week. See if you like watching the “Total Sprints” increase.
Read more on How to Stop Procrastinating.
Thanks to Brynn Stewart for reading a draft of this and to Tina Huang for introducing me to scorecards!