Close your eyes. Imagine yourself finishing that tedious months-long project you’ve been dreading.
Think about the papers you’re preparing on your desk, documents you need to print, the conversations you’ll need to have to finish the project and even what you’ll wear on presentation day or how it will feel to finally ace the project – the more vivid the picture is in your mind, the better.
The exercise seems simple, but some recent research suggests that visualising yourself in the future could be a novel way to beat procrastination.
The theory goes like this: most of us aren’t particularly good at picturing how our immediate actions will affect us long-term. But if we’re constantly picturing ourselves at a later point in life, and how our daily decisions affect this future person, it can help us make better immediate decisions because it’s easier to imagine the long-term consequences.