Overcoming Procrastination

So let's talk about procrastination right now and just have a conversation about what it means. You know, procrastination basically means that you are not doing what you know you need to do when you know you need to do it. It's putting things off because in the short term it's easier, it's more comfortable, it's more certain, it's more pleasureful to be distracted or to indulge yourself doing something else and than it is to sit down and do the actual work to create the outputs that matter when they are needed. And I know that every single one of us procrastinates. Me too. So it's okay. The issue is, can you set yourself up so you do less of it? I believe you can. So let's talk about procrastination in this way. Three brain hacks. Number one. Simple. You're more likely to do something if you have already prepared and stepped it through. You're already more likely to do something if you already prepared and stepped it through. What does that mean? It means if you want to not procrastinate on Monday, Sunday night, I want you to sit down and do this simple little thing. Project plan. I know it's not sexy. Please don't make fun of me right now. It's not sexy. I know it's not sexy. And it will change your life forever. The day before the days in which it's required that you really get stuff done, I want you to sit down and project plan. I don't mean tomorrow. Write down your to do lists. That is one element of project planning. But I want a bigger picture. I want you to be thinking about the big projects that you have coming up. And I want you to have written out these steps that it's going to take. The big steps that we'll take to, to accomplish this project and this project and this project with a timeline for each of them and then work backwards from that to create tomorrow's to do lists. But here's what's funny. Listen to this. If your mind can't see completion, if your mind cannot see completion, meaning you don't know the path, you don't have clarity on the path to fulfill or complete something. If your mind can't see the steps, your heart will ask to pause. If your mind can't see the project through the completion, your heart will ask to pause. Even if you're the most passionate, dream oriented, amazing, high performer in the world. But you yank away someone's clarity. You know, no goals, no growth, no clarity. No change. And so if you find yourself procrastinating, it might not even. You might be like, but, Brendan, I hate myself. I procrastinate. And I even know the next three things I should do. I go, not enough. Knowing your next three steps is not enough. Your mind needs to see all the steps through to completion. And that's what we call project planning. It's not super fun, but. But it's saying, okay, this is the big project. Here are the big key activities, the big buckets of activities that would have to happen to get it done. Here's the timelines. Those big buckets have to happen, okay? Then these big buckets of activities, those have to be broken down into tasks and then into ultimately daily to dos. And if we don't have that, it's just hard to act when you don't have a complete picture, right? You're kind of like procrastinating. Let me give you a metaphor. You know, they've timed people about how long it takes them to complete a puzzle. So if I show up at your house and I give you a big puzzle box and there's 400 pieces in it, and we set it out on your table, and we watch how long different time periods takes to complete it. You know, the fastest, most productive time in which people are putting puzzles together? The last 20%. Have you ever done a puzzle? Right. You might walk by it three, four times for a couple weeks. You don't do anything. You put a few pieces together, but soon as the picture becomes a little more clear, guess what you do? You hunker down and you complete it, don't you? That's what's going on with procrastination. Even if you see the first couple pieces, it's just like if you can't see where it's going, your heart will go pause. I'm unsure. I'm scared. I don't know what to do. That's just how we think, right? That part of our brain that is trying to protect us, that part of our heart that says, I want to do good, I want to care for other people and do things with excellence, all of a sudden, those are compromised when we don't do the most basic thing. So if there's an important project you've been procrastinating in, do yourself. The greatest gift I can give you today, and that is tonight. Sit down with your journal and step it all the way out. Even if you have to make it up, Even if you're like, I'm not sure this is actually the big activities. It's not about having the perfect project plan. It's having one that is completed. At least the knowledge you know now, because then your brain will go, okay, let's get into this and keep making this thing better. But your brain won't get into it if you haven't project planned. So this is really important. What I do to avoid procrastination each week is every single Sunday for me. That's my Sunday review days, Sunday work days. I'll sit down and I'll literally step through the entire week. Of all the major things on my email, on my to do list, I'll think about the bigger projects and I'll just kind of step it all the way through. And guess what? I enter the week more engaged, more joyous and confident, because I know what the heck is going on. So if you keep procrastinating, I promise, if it's not lots of worry or it's not lots of randomness, you haven't seen it through yet. Other brain hack, very related, but a little different and more immediate. And you'll love this one. So number two is this. And it's so basic, but I'm going to test you and see how often you've been doing it. And that is visualize. Remember I said you won't do it if your brain can't see it. Step through. Well, here's specifically what I do to make sure I don't procrastinate. I literally visualize and affirm what I'm about to go do. So if it's Sunday and I say, okay, you know, tomorrow in the afternoon, I've got all these things I can procrastinate because I'm the only one holding myself accountable. And I could say, well, you know what, let's see here. How would I avoid that? I will sit down and I'll do this 20, 30 minutes a day, visualizing the next day or that morning, I'll sit down and visualize the day and I'll just step it through. I'll say, okay, let's let me see myself going into the kitchen, getting my little green tea, going over to the office, sitting down at the computer, opening up that blank page, happily typing along, sensing and feeling those great emotions of doing my calling as a writer. Let me feel the power and the joy of finishing a great day of writing. Let me imagine myself going to dinner, getting to sit down with my wife and saying, honey, here's what I did today. I wrote this part of the book. Let me hear, see and feel that interaction with her happiness and her joy that I'm doing. My path let me imagine myself going to bed that night, happy that you know what I did, what I'm here to do. Now, I don't know what your calling is or what you feel like you should be doing, but for me, that simple little activity of just literally walking the entire day through, not just one thing. I do this with mega athletes all the time. I say, listen, I don't want you to just imagine the fight. I want you to visualize yourself on the way over to the arena. I want you to see, visualize yourself getting laced up. I want you to visualize yourself on the walk down to the ring, entering the ring, your first feelings, walking around the ring, the sense that you will have as you're in that fight, that sense that you have when you're getting beaten in that fight and how you're going to feel and respond to that. Because visualization is not just happy, go lucky. It's also like, okay, see yourself. What do you do when there's a struggle? So for me, okay, what do I do when I get writer's block? How does the Brendan dealing with writer's block? Deal with that and I'll see it. I'll imagine myself getting back at it and I'll see it through. How's it feel when you win? How's it feel after the win? How's it feel at the end of the day? How's it feel when you finally lay your head onto your pillow and go to bed? That is a full day visualization on the things that matter the most for your productivity. And I want you to do that at least either the night before or the day of the morning of and what will happen these two things together? As I know you might say, Bren, that's so basic, but okay, did you do it last night? Because I've found as a high performance coach, sometimes it is not the big crazy things. It's that people aren't doing the fundamentals and they want me to say, brendon changed my life. I go, okay, let's change your life. Let's be accountable. Did you do these things last night? So don't tell me it's too basic. This is me challenging and being honest. Did you do these two things last night? If you did, give yourself a shout out down below and celebrate yourself. Good for you. If you're not doing this consistently, that is why you are consistently procrastinating, my friend. I know sometimes life change can be so basic and you go, duh, why haven't I been doing that? But those ones are really important as a coach for me to call out for you because I know a lot of people who could be so much more effective if they got back to the fundamentals. Let me share this last one with you. So first, brain hack project plan day before, step it all the way through day before, the morning of visualize the entire process of the day and you doing it well. Even if you meet uncertainty, fear, struggle, hardship. And the last piece is the other brain hack. Don't forget that not only do we need order, not only do we need the creativity and the visualization, we're also social animals. So I want you to socialize your agenda with other people. Socialize your agenda with other people. What does that mean? Well, it's just the same, you know, at this time of year a lot of people are trying to lose some weight or trying to go to the gym. And what's the first advice everyone always gives them because it's proven by science to work over and over and over again. Get a workout buddy. Because if you got a workout buddy, you'll show up. It's harder to procrastinate when your name, your integrity, your relationships are on the line. And so you need to tell people about what you have to do. You'd probably be annoyed hanging out with me because if we went out to dinner, I'd probably tell you like 10 things I'm going to do tomorrow. And I'm not telling you that because I love to talk about work. I know if I speak will become more real the next day. If I don't affirm it and share it with other people, it's just in my head, I'm just not going to be as productive. And I do know without question this is a big issue for a lot of people. They're stay at home moms, they're work from home entrepreneurs, they're the senior leader in their company who does a lot of status things, but they don't themselves get to talk through a lot of things. And I can't tell you how important it is to speak through the reality that you want. Right? These things you could certainly do on your own. But if you share these things with other people and you socialize that agenda, all of a sudden you won't procrastinate because you know that you've put it out there, other people are going to hold you accountable or even just more. Sometimes talking something through makes you want to do it more literally. They found in Psychological studies, just speaking out your goals makes it more likely that you will take consistent action on those goals. Literally just speaking it. And they've even done it where they took out other people. They just made someone stand in a booth with a microphone and speak out what they were going to do. They were more likely to do that than if they just kept it in their head and didn't speak it. So if you're like, but, Brandon, I got nobody who believes in my dreams, I'm like, well, I bet you have a friend and you could facetime them or Skype them and talk through is so important for you to speak through your dreams than you can probably ever imagine. And a lot of people keep that stuff to themselves because what, they're worried how they look. So now imagine all these things colliding on the opposite. You're worried how you look so you don't tell anybody, so you're not socially accountable and you have no social cheerleading. You're worried what other people will think. So in your brain you go, well, if other people are going to think I'm crazy, why even do this? I mean, that's a risk. So I might look stupid if I do. So now your brain goes, well, why even imagine this for yourself anymore? Then your brain says, well, if you can't imagine it for yourself anymore, why would you even plan it? And if you can't imagine it, you can't plan it. And other people might think you're stupid. Why don't you go find something else to do, like Netflix or shopping or hanging out or indulging yourself in some other hobbies that aren't relevant to what you're trying to do, AKA, let's procrastinate because we're worried. You see, all these tie together. So the brain hacks are to set yourself up so that you have more confidence and routine and structure going in. These are the three ways as a recap. Project plan, night before, week before, day of, I don't care. But if you can do it the day before, it sets it mentally in your brain and you have a little more confidence in it. Definitely visualize night before or day of or all the time. And the last piece is socialize it. You've got to start sharing your thoughts, your dreams, your agenda, what you're going to do with other people. And if you do those three things, your brain will be more optimized and more likely to get in the game and get stuff done. Sam.