How Nigerian filmmaker Funke Akindele manages to beat procrastination every day

Procrastination — the act of delaying or postponing work — is something most people struggle with.
It is a trap that encourages us to push work aside to spend hours scrolling through Instagram or getting into unnecessary conversations on Twitter.
However, the truly determined people still manage to push past the tendency to procrastinate in order to get the work done.

Nigerian actress, producer and director Funke Akindele-Bello is one of the people that has been able to fight procrastination.

She shares her secret in a recent chat with Business Insider Sub-Saharan Africa. Her trick is to create a weekly checklist and stick to it.

“Every day, I list what I want to do the next day,” she says. "Actually, I do this every Saturday. I list what I want to do throughout the week. So I check this list every night and anything I miss, I have to take note and do it the next day.”

Funke Akindele first came into limelght in the late 1990s tv drama series 'I Need To Know' [Instagram/FunkeJenifaAkindele] Pulse Nigeria

According to Akindele-Bello, it is important to fight procrastination if you want to beat the competition.

In her words, “I do not like to procrastinate. I do not want to wait because it is dangerous. Great minds think alike if I do not do my own, another person will. So I just have to keep up by using a checklist which helps me cover everything I need to do.”

Procrastination is the thief of time. ece-auto-gen

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Extra tips from other successful people

Like Akindele-Bello, media mogul Oprah Winfrey and Apple founder Steve Jobs have also figured out ways to beat procrastination. Here is how:

Winfrey believes in confronting your inner procrastinator.

She says, “I procrastinate with confrontational things and uncomfortable conversations. I’ll give myself a deadline. And then I’ll change that deadline when that deadline shows up [laughs]. ‘Okay, by 3, I’m going to make that call.' Four o’clock comes around — ‘Okay okay, by 5 today. Oh, everybody’s left New York! Can’t make that call!’ So now I sit and ask myself, ‘What’s the worst that’s going to happen here, and why do I fear the confrontation?’”

Oprah Winfrey challenges her inner procrastinator Rodale

Jobs says the only way you can beat procrastination is by doing something you love.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it,” he states.