3 Ways to Stop Procrastinating
According to a study performed in Britain, people spend an average of 11 hours a week putting things off. That's 24 days a YEAR spent procrastinating. Can you imagine what you'd do with an extra month this year? But quitting procrastination is easier said than done -- how can we actually focus and start getting things DONE?
Hey guys, Steph Crowder from courageandclarity.com here, I'm a business strategist & educator for online business builders, and I'm all about balancing the head AND heart of entrepreneurship so you can take your next best step.
In today's episode, I'm sharing 3 easy ways you can stop procrastinating and actually things done.
In order to share some simple *solutions* to our most common procrastinating woes, I'm going to call out 3 different "procrastination problems" that I'm guessing you might be all too familiar with.
Here’s a sneak peak:
Problem #1: You're so overwhelmed with "allthethings," you do nothing at all [7:14]
Problem #2: You're putting too much on your list [9:54]
Problem #3: You give yourself too much time to complete tasks [14:28]
Problem #1: You're so overwhelmed with all the things your head, leading you to do nothing at all.
Here's the funny thing about procrastination: most of us who find ourselves not getting as much done as we'd like think we have a *time management problem*.
You think to yourself, "man, if only I could get better at TIME MANAGEMENT, I wouldn't procrastinate." Ever caught yourself saying something like that?
But according to Nils Salzgeber, author of the book Stop Procrastinating, you're not bad at managing time if you have issues with procrastination.
In fact, procrastination has nothing to do with time management at all. Rather, procrastination is about managing *the self* -- our thoughts, feelings and actions -- NOT managing time.
Ok, so what's that mean? It means that in order to start getting things done, we have to address our thoughts, feelings and actions about getting stuff done.
You see, so often we build up a bunch of stories -- about how much we have to do, about how we aren't capable of doing it, about how there isn't enough time -- you get the picture.
Easy Solution #1: BRAIN DUMP every single task you can think of.
This is my all time favorite quick drill to bust out of stalling mode and actually feel empowered to get to work.
Set a timer for 10 minute. Grab a piece of paper, notebook or google doc. Start writing Ev-er-y possible thing you COULD work on today -- from checking email to cleaning the dishes in the sink to planning your kid's birthday party.
Speaking of, I should probably be working on that…
Keep going until you can't think of one more task you could be doing today.
Now here's the magic of this exercise -- it doesn't matter if you just wrote enough words to compose the next great american novel.
The idea isn't to tackle all of this stuff -- the power here is that all of those tasks that were running around in your brain like squirrels in a paper bag are now OUT of your head and ONTO paper.
You can breathe a sigh of relief knowing stuff won't fall through the cracks.
This exercise will help you get past the scary thoughts and feelings surrounding getting stuff done, because you're able to separate it from your brain and see that it's all tackle-able.
Now that it's written down, you can start doing something about it.
Problem 2: Putting too much on the to do list in any given day or week.
Ok, so after doing that big brain dump, I'm willing to bet you've got a LOT on your list. Here's the trick: RESIST the temptation to pile waaaay too much onto your plate!
I see you out there, you overachiever you. You've got that big ol' to do list staring you in the face, and now you're ready to get after it!
But heaping way too much onto ourselves is a recipe for getting overwhelmed again, which leads you right back to, you guessed it: procrastination.
Easy solution #2: See what happens if you target ONE task each day.
My students who work with me know we always talk about MITs: Most Important Tasks.
At the beginning of each week, I challenge you to look at that big hairy to do list and pick the THREE most important tasks of the week.
"Procrastination has nothing to do with time management at all. Rather, procrastination is about managing the self -- our thoughts, feelings and actions -- NOT managing time."
My favorite way to select these is to imagine yourself standing in your kitchen this Friday, favorite beverage in your hand, looking back on your week.
Even if everything goes COMPLETELY off the rails and life throws you curveballs, what 3 things do you really want to be able to say you accomplished?
Another way to do this is to wake up each day and ask the question, "If I could only get ONE thing done today, what would have the absolute biggest impact on my business?"
Now I know you might be thinking "But Steph. SURELY I can do more than 1 thing a day, or 3 things a week!"
But do the math. If you do 3 things a week for a month, that's 12 things you've completed. If you do 1 thing a day, that could be as many as 30 things a month.
And I don't know about you, but 12-30 hard-hitting business tasks completed in my business sounds pretty awesome to me.
So set yourself up to win here. If you complete a task with ease one day, then go you, you gold medal productivity superstar! Move on to another task, and celebrate it as a bonus.
Can you see how this way of thinking takes you from a loser who is always behind, to a *winner* who is actually AHEAD of where she needs to be?
It's allllll in the attitude.
Problem 3: Giving ourselves too much time to complete tasks.
Ok so this one's super interesting, and I have to credit the great Brooke Castillo for turning me on to this one.
In episode 217 of Amy Porterfield's Marketing Made Easy podcast, Brooke explains that giving ourselves an entire day or even multiple days to tackle a project works *against* our productivity.
To me, this comes back to Parkinson's Law. Ever hear of this guy Parkinson? He tells us that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion."
That's right -- the more time we give ourselves to do something, the longer it takes us to actually DO it!
Easy Solution #3: Give yourself a MUCH smaller window to complete tasks… and reward yourself when it's done.
Imagine this: let's say you need to record & edit a podcast episode. Traditionally, you carve out an entire day to do this. You want to make sure you get it right and don't feel too rushed.
Instead, dare yourself to do it in an amount of time that almost scares you a little bit. What would happen if you challenged yourself to get it done in just 2 hours instead of blocking off the whole day?
Even better -- what if you tell yourself that after it's done in the 2 hours, you get to take yourself on a date to Target in the middle of the day without your kids and walk the aisles as slowly as you like?
Come on moms out there, you know that's the perfect reward!
Challenging ourselves to focus for shorter periods of time is more realistic, plus we're incentivized to get the job done and enjoy a little bit of that extra time.
So next time you carve out time for a project, cut the allotted time in half. Maybe you get really crazy and cut it in half again!
You'll be amazed at how quickly a project can come together when we give ourselves permission to work quickly.
And there you have it -- 3 easy ways to STOP procrastination its tracks, and actually start getting stuff done.
Now I want to hear from you: it's time to fess up. What do YOU do when you're procrastinating?
For me, it's definitely social media. You can catch me scrollin' the 'gram when I'm slacking off. But luckily, when I catch myself doing it, I like to come back to these 3 easy tips. Tell me your procrastination weakness in the comments below!
That's all for now -- I'm wishing you the courage and the clarity to go after what you love!