Having high standards and setting goals for yourself is undoubtedly a good trait to have. It denotes ambition and a drive to be successful.

However, setting your goals too high and expecting to achieve them in an unrealistically short space of time can make one feel like a failure.

We all want our dissertation or essay to be perfect. We want to do the best to our ability and learn to improve and enhance our skill set.

However, perfectionism - that is, the refusal to accept any standard short of perfection - can lead to stress and feelings of anxiety that whatever you produce will never be good enough. That whatever you produce will not be perfect!

It can be like having an inner audience trapped inside your head. You attempt to write something but a voice in your head critically judges every paragraph, every sentence and every word.

This in turn can lead to procrastination. Intense procrastination that can stretch from days to weeks and even months.

You keep telling yourself - kidding yourself - that you will get round to it and before you know it, the deadline is only days away and you barely got started.

The next stage is Paralysis which is a complete mental block in your area of work. Just thinking about it gives you a headache, so you distract yourself with something else.

You have lost all enthusiasm and motivation to continue or even start your work.

These stages may or may not come in order of one another but nevertheless it is a vicious cycle that is preventable.

Here are deVere Group’s top tips on how to avoid the dreaded three Ps or how to get out of them if you find yourself stuck in that routine.

1. Acceptance

Take solace in the fact that if you have studied and done the research then you have prepared as best you can with the time you have.

Accept that your work may not be perfect but that you have done it to the best of your ability. That’s all one can do.

Know that your performance levels will ebb and flow as is natural but so long as you are not giving up and making an effort then progress is being made.

Learn to recognise and zone out that perfectionist audience in your head that prevents you all together from working. Recognise what is constructive self-criticism and what is not.

2. Mini-breaks

This may seem counter-productive in the sense that you are looking for tips to increase your work rate and here you are reading that you should take mini breaks.

However, a good way to get yourself back on the road to writing and studying is to take mini-breaks after doing a reasonable amount of work.

Pacing yourself with mini-breaks gives your brain something else to think about and can prevent burnout.

Also, make sure these mini breaks do not last too long or else it will defeat the entire purpose. Preferably, no more than 10 minutes at a time.

A good way to start is working for a solid 15 to 20 minutes before taking a break. After a while, slowly increase your work time in between these breaks.

Rewarding yourself during these breaks (i.e. browsing through your social media platforms or by watching that YouTube video) can act as an incentive to crack on, as it were, and start working.

Alternatively, another thing you can do during these mini-breaks is watch an educational video or perhaps you can attempt to solve a puzzle like a Rubik’s cube.

Doing these can help keep your mind engaged and focused for when you get started again.

If whilst working you find yourself getting overwhelmed or worked up the stop what you are doing. Get up, leave the desk and take a small walk to help clear your mind.

These are all guidelines and not rules. What may work for you may not work for other people. Give it a try and see how it goes. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised at the results.

3. Mini-tasks: Slowly increase productivity

Once you get back on that road to recovery and have started writing again, one may also increase their work rate by setting up small and realistic goals for the day or even for the next hour or work.

Giving yourself min-tasks to achieve, however small they may be, will give you a rightful sense of accomplishment and raise your confidence levels.

Slowly but surely, your work rate will grow as your motivation levels increase. Before long you will find the need to take less and less mini-breaks.

4. Talk to a friend, family member or tutor

Do not bottle it all in, confide in others. If your stress is preventing you from writing or if you have feelings of anxiety because you think your work is not up to standard, then talk to your friends or family members.

Do not bear the weight of your worries alone as this will lead to more and more stress but rather release your stress by talking about your worries and or concerns to others.

In doing so, others will be more ready to open up to you about their own anxieties and you will find out that you are not so alone after all.

Alternatively, if you would rather not confide in someone that you know then you can contact your guidance council at your establishment.

Most, if not all Universities, usually have a tutor or guidance council that you can talk to you about your work or even non-work related problems. After all, they are there to help you so why not use the service available to you? More importantly, it is strictly confidential.

Talking about your work related issues can help clear your mind of clutter whilst also allowing others to help you as you help them.

5. Conclusion

Perhaps one of the best things to take away from all this is to know that, as with most things in life, your work is subjective. You may have written, for example, a top-class dissertation about the effects of British Colonial rule in the African content from 1850 till 1950.

However, there is always going to be someone that is not interested in history and may therefore find your work uninteresting or boring.

Just know that if you have worked your heart out and done the research and finished the write up then that is good work and no one can take that away from you.

One may not be into your line of work but one can always appreciate the discipline and the effort put in.

Strive for excellence rather than for perfectionism.

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