The washing is piling up, that email you’ve been meaning to send for days is still in your drafts and the desperately needed food shop you swore you’d do after work still hasn’t materialised in your fridge.

It’s an all-too-familiar scenario for most of us, but if you’ve ever wished you could kick the habit of procrastinating when faced with annoying but important tasks, you’re in luck.

In a post on Instagram, Nawal Mustafa, aka The Brain Coach, shared a handy tip for tricking yourself into completing all those menial chores before they build up and cause even more stress.

“Studies have found that procrastination is not a time-management issue but more of a self-regulation problem,” she explains.

“We procrastinate when we are unable to manage negative feelings around a task (such as boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment and self-doubt).”

Mustafa shares that this is particularly the case when we experience “task aversion” – whether a job is too boring, too complicated or involves a situation that causes anxiety, like making a phone call or meeting someone face-to-face.

The avoidance sends us into a distraction spiral, which ultimately leads to further procrastination.

To combat this, she suggests using a “10-minute rule” to minimise disturbance and take action before our emotions and brain talk us out of doing it.

How to trick yourself out of procrastination and into completing tasks

“If you don’t want to do a task, make a deal with yourself to try to do at least 10 minutes of it,” she writes.

Choose a few songs to listen to in succession or pop a well-timed video on in the background so that you’re not constantly clock-watching. Simply make a start on the job and see how far you get within that time.

“If you absolutely hate it after 10 minutes, stop and try again later,” Mustafa says, but the chances are that you will end up finishing a significant amount of the task, or indeed the whole thing.

There’s certainly a case for breaking down a seemingly mammoth task (even if it’s not actually that big) into bite-size chunks. Popping just one load in the machine sounds more manageable than tackling a whole pile of dirty clothes. Getting outside for a 10-minute stroll appeals more than a 10-mile hike. A quick refresh of your home isn’t certainly more likely to happen than hours of deep cleaning.

But the key is making a start, and once you’ve faced that first hurdle, the rest should fall into place easier.

“We usually procrastinate when we are unable to manage negative feelings around doing a task,” Mustafa continues, “but once we get started, these feelings tend to minimise.”

Will you be trying it out for yourself?

Images: Getty