Why We Procrastinate + 11 Apps to Boost Your Productivity

Sadly, nope. But we can use them to better how we work.

Whether you’re a person who’s overwhelmed by your hyper-scheduled day or you find that your 10-minute Instagram breaks turn into two-hour social media black holes, everyone could use a productivity boost from time to time.

Here’s the good news: Like most things, you can do it straight from your phone or laptop. But before we all download an app that we hope will be the quick fix, let us talk about why we procrastinate.

Why We Procrastinate: The Psychology of Procrastination Habits

Often, we associate procrastination with bad time management or laziness. However, as Dr. Elizabeth Lombardo points out in Psychology Today, procrastination typically has more to do with negative emotions. Specifically, Lombardo explains, our procrastination tendencies manifest to help us avoid negative emotions. 

Procrastination often appears alongside two annoying negative feelings: fear of failure or perfectionism.

In the workplace, we might avoid a certain important task while waiting for inspiration to strike, only delaying the inevitable. When mood or inspiration fails to strike, we end up completing these big tasks in a harried nature and the result is further from perfect than it may have been if you had allowed time and space. 

Here's another example of how a negative feeling could cause a procrastination cycle. Imagine you have one weekly task that you hate completing, like data entry. This task brings up negative feelings of boredom. As a result, you avoid this task until the last minute.

In these cases, procrastination is not an issue of poor time management. Rather, it's an issue of emotional management, and it's a bad habit to get into. 

How to Break a Procrastination Cycle

If you suspect that your behavior is based on negative emotions, dig deeper. Give yourself a little self-forgiveness and a lot of self-compassion when combatting these negative thoughts. 

Meanwhile, here are five steps to help you break your procrastination habits. 

1. Identify the Negative Emotion and Bury It 

Whether it's boredom, fear, or dread, name it. Know that hard work doesn't hurt. Boredom doesn't kill. Fear is largely useless. However, the stress and anxiety that come alongside procrastination are proven dangers to our mental and physical health. 

Now, bury all the negative emotions. Instead of the countless hours you'll spend dreading the work you have to do, start to chip away at it instead. 

If you have a large piece of writing to do, break it into pieces. Here's how you could break it up:

2. Know What Triggers Negative Emotions and Plan For It 

Whether at work or in your personal life, know beforehand what triggers your negative emotions. Name them and take away their power as soon as possible. By knowing yourself better, you'll have the added bonus of knowing what to say no to. 

If you're going to dread attending every single meeting, maybe the weekly book club isn't for you, and that's okay. 

3. Know Your Excuses

While saying "no" more often sounds like a dream, we can't say "no" to every trigger, especially not at work. Before you enter your next cycle of dread and procrastination, make a list of your best excuses. 

4. Keep a Realistic Workload

If you're a regular Career Contessa reader (or if you just searched productivity apps) then you probably love to get things done. You love learning new things and seeking new opportunities. That's awesome, but have a glass of reality alongside your ambition. 

Try to keep your workload manageable to avoid procrastination self-sabotage. Make sure your to-do lists get shorter by the end of the day, not longer. Know that tomorrow is likely an option to get more done, but it doesn't mean that you should add 12 extra things to your already jam-packed calendar. 

5. Say Goodbye to Guilt and Shame

Oh, we are so done with this 24/7 productivity merry-go-round. We know the frustration that comes along with the feeling of ineptitude. 

Forgive yourself. In fact, research shows that forgiving yourself for past procrastination habits can prevent future procrastination. 

So forgive yourself, like right now. Don't procrastinate on this one. 

The Best Productivity Apps (To Help You Stop Procrastinating!)

So—at least until Siri starts writing your expense reports for you (hint, hint Apple)—try these apps specifically designed to keep you from slacking off. Trust us—it's been scientifically proven to work.

1. Notion 

Your All-In-One Workspace

All of a sudden, it seems like Notion is everywhere—and there's a good reason for it. 

Since its inception in 2018, it's been used as a tool for teams to collaborate on deadlines, objectives, and assignments for the sake of efficiency and productivity. 

Why It Works:

You can replace tools like Trello, Google Docs, Asana, Quip, Todoist, and others, and bring them all into one application. You can also use Notion to take notes, track your progress, create a mood board for art, and organize project details.

Plus, TikTok got word of Notion—and they took it to the next level. Go to Notion to download the app and learn basic how-tos. Then, get over to TikTok's #notion hashtag and learn how to do basically anything. 

2. Focus@Will 

To Get Your Head in the Game

There’s a reason you rely on your pump-up music to work out: it puts your brain in full productivity mode. Focus@Will works the same way, using the science-backed motivational power of music to improve your focus.

Why It Works:

Especially if you work in a distracting open-plan office, the app's calming music—coffee shop background noise, rushing water, “focus spa”—drowns out the distractions so you can hone in on your work.

If Spotify’s not cutting it, give Focus@Will a shot. It costs $9.95 a month, but if you don’t feel like shelling out, try selling your coworkers on its group packages.

3. Monday.com

If You're Drowning in Workflows

Streamline your work for maximum productivity. With Monday.com you can centralize all your work, processes, tools, and files into one Work OS. Connect teams, bridge silos, and maintain one source of truth across your organization.

Why It Works:

Monday.com keeps you from drowning in tasks with its incredible task management tools. You can keep notes alongside your tasks and build automated workflows to save you time. Plus, Monday.com includes a visual board so its actually fun to put together the outline of a workflow or project!

4. Evernote

If You're in a Group

You’d think that group projects would motivate us to work harder for the sake of our partners—or to protect our own reputations. Turns out that the opposite’s true, though: research (and all of your nightmare high school group assignments) shows that we give less effort when we work with others.

Why It Works:

Enter Evernote. This desktop and mobile app keeps everyone on the same page: You can write a project to-do list, set reminders for teammates, and create and save “notes” that instantly save to everyone’s devices. Its group notebooks also let coworkers present and swap ideas seamlessly, which will save everyone from saying,” Oh, sh*t, I never got that email.”

Still recovering from those catastrophic high school assignments? Give Evernote a shot.

5. Simple Habit 

To Conquer Procrastination Anxiety

Your major presentation sends you into a cold sweat, so you put it off. As the date draws nearer and you’re still unprepared, your anxiety ratchets up, you keep avoiding it, and...you know how this one ends.

Why It Works

Meditation helps you center your thoughts, calm down, and stop that self-fulfilling cycle of procrastination, anxiety, and more procrastination. With an app like Simple Habit, you can tap into those benefits during a marathon desk session.

And with its five-, 10-, and 20-minute duration options, Simple Habit provides the perfect low-key option for overscheduled people or those who just feel weird about meditation. Though some of its choices are only available with a paid subscription, it also offers many customized sessions for improving focus, reducing stress, and commuting.

Whenever you’re staring down a high-stakes deadline, log into Simple Habit. Chances are you’ll find just the stress-killing session you need.

6. Mindly 

To Master Your Mental Mess

You never mean to procrastinate, but your mind (and desk) is so cluttered with to-do lists and deadlines and reminders to call mom that you just can’t make sense of it all...and so you start watching cat videos.  

Why It Works:

With Mindly, you can take back control of your brain. The app helps you organize your thoughts in a more three-dimensional—and less-soul-crushing—manner than a to-do list. Through the app, you create an infinite number of circles and interconnect related ideas. You can edit these little bubbles, change their colors, and even add emojis to them.

So next time you’re feeling scattered, download Mindly to spring-clean your brain.

7. Momentum

For Some Morning Motivation

All of the productivity blogs recommend beginning each day with a goal (or a mantra, if you’re the meditating type). But if you’ve battled insane traffic and arrived to absolute chaos in your inbox, you might not be able to set a goal besides surviving the day. Momentum encourages you to start each day with intention instead.

Why It Works:

This desktop extension lets you set a daily goal that’ll appear on your homepage, set against super inspirational backgrounds of scenic views and motivational quotes like, "Deal with the big while it is still small.”  

When you’re feeling that 3:30 sag, use that message as your metaphorical coffee break. Once you do finish your task, you get to manually check your goal off the list. You'll even get a “Way to go!” in return. Cue the warm and fuzzies.

If you respond badly to pressure—even when you need it—use Momentum for some lower-key inspiration.

8. Freedom

For the Serious Situations

Whether it’s Reddit or your favorite blog, we’ve all got our weak spots online. And sometimes, like when we’ve got something due by end of the day and are still unconsciously drifting over to Twitter, Freedom (formerly Stay Focused) plays the bad cop.

Why It Works:

This Google Chrome extension locks you out of your favorite attention-sucking sites for a set amount of time—and with its Nuclear Option, you can’t undo it when your temptation starts to rise.

Of course, you can only take advantage of Freedom once you accept that you’re powerless to stop your Twitter addiction. But don’t worry: downloading Freedom will let you finish your project faster, which leaves more time for Pinterest. Win-win for us.

9. Toby

To Take Back Control of Your Browser

If I tracked the amount of time I’ve spent clicking between my nine open tabs before settling on the one I need, I’d probably quit. When projects keep popping up, all of the extra tabs create clutter that compounds our stress. So we shift back and forth, back and forth, between tabs until we want to throw our laptops through a wall.

Why It Works:

Sound familiar? Get Toby, stat. This Google extension reorganizes your browser—and your life—by storing your active tabs aside in customized folders, so you can focus on one window at a time without losing progress in your other windows. Conquer Google Chrome, conquer your life.

10. Pomodoro Keepers

To Avoid the Mid-Afternoon Crash and Burn

Four straight hours of work sounds overwhelming. Eight 25-minute bursts—each with a quick break—seems a little more manageable, right? But when we're sucked into a project, we ignore our hunger and natural energy cues until we’re too conked out to accomplish one more thing.

Why It Works:

That’s where Pomodoro Keepers come in. These timers split your working time into 25-minute increments—or “pomodoros”—with a pre-scheduled five-minute break in between. After four pomodoros, take a longer 15-minute break. A few of these cycles and soon enough, the day’s over and you feel just as refreshed as when you started.

11. Calm

To Sleep, Meditate, and Be Specifically Unproductive

In the words of every basketball coach ever, sometimes the best defense is a good offense. That's where Calm comes in. Instead of helping you streamline and sync calendars, Calm helps you to disconnect and recharge your battery—before it's completely depleted. 

Why It Works:

Calm can help users improve their sleep, reduce stress, calm anxiety, improve focus, or decompress. All of these things are actually productive because we need to turn ourselves off in order to operate. So calm the "hustle harder" voice and take a train ride through Ireland with Cillian Murphy. I do it every night. 

Anti-Procrastination Techniques + Habits to Try

In addition to these great apps, let's discuss some anti-procrastination techniques and habits. This list below (with examples) is not intended to overwhelm you or make you feel pressured to try them all! In fact, we recommend picking one or two techniques that address your biggest needs right now.

Start Small

Break Tasks into Manageable Bite-Sized Tasks

Remove Distractions

Make the Work More Fun

Decide How You Will Handle Setbacks—Before They Happen

Do the Work You're Least Excited About First

Declutter Your Workspace

Use a Timer

Create a Ritual

Practice Self-Compassion

Write Things Down

Reward Your Accomplishments

Take a Break