By Leo Babauta

I’ve been procrastinating a lot lately. I actually love procrastinating and have nothing against it.

But for those of you who want to beat procrastination, here are 10 simple steps:

1. First make sure you really, really, really want to do it. Seriously – don’t skip this step.
2. Keep things simple – don’t mess with tools, formatting, anything, just start.
3. Make it the first thing you do today, before checking email or anything else.
4. Clear away everything that stands in the way of doing. Including turning off the Internet.
5. Just get started. Overcome the initial barrier by diving in.
6. Tell yourself you’re just going to do 10 minutes.
7. Put something you dread more at the top of your to-do list — you’ll put off doing that by doing the other things on your list. (Structured procrastination.)
8. Find something about it that excites you.
9. Forget about perfection. Just start doing it, and fix it later.
10. If you keep procrastinating, re-evaluate whether you really want to do it. Consider not doing it, or putting it on the backburner.

If all else fails, just take a nap or go outside and enjoy the outdoors or do nothing. Life isn’t all about productivity. Do less.