48: Three Simple Strategies to Beat Procrastination
9 May 2023 · 14 min
In this solo episode of the Professional Creative Podcast, host Bonnie Christine discusses her personal battle with procrastination and introduces what she calls “productive procrastination”—using low‑stakes tasks to avoid high‑impact work. She then shares three concrete strategies that have helped her overcome this habit in her multi‑seven‑figure creative business: (1) Time blocking – scheduling 60‑90 minute focused work blocks, using a simple timer, and inserting purposeful breaks for low‑effort tasks; (2) Minimizing distractions – physically removing phone, closing browser tabs, tidying the workspace, using noise‑cancelling headphones or changing locations to create a distraction‑free environment; (3) Prioritizing a “top‑three” list – identifying the three most important tasks that would make the day feel successful and fitting them into the time blocks. She adds a fourth, bonus tip: simply start the task, emphasizing that the hardest part is often just beginning. Throughout, Bonnie weaves in her entrepreneurial backstory, her use of the all‑in‑one platform Kajabi for business management, and a brief sponsor plug. The episode ends with an encouraging call to action for listeners to create the beauty they want to see.
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Okay, so be honest. Who else here has the very special gift of procrastination? I think we are masters at procrastination. And if you're like me, I actually do this thing that I call productive procrastination. So I'm not just wasting time. I'm just using my time on things that are important. Important but not difficult. Meaning I'll start with the easiest things in my day so that I start crossing them off. Or I'll spend a lot of time answering comments or checking things. This is what I call productive procrastination. It's work. It's legitimately work, but it's not actually moving the needle on anything that I actually need to move the needle on. And so today this is a short but mighty we call those smighty episode of the three simple strategies that I Use to Beat Procrastination in My own Business and Life. So let's dive right on in. I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast. One of the biggest bottlenecks that I see creative entrepreneurs and small business owners experience is made by juggling multiple platforms trying to manage their online business. Can you relate from your website to your email list, to your sales pages? It can be overwhelming and time consuming and sometimes you have to wonder are you a creative or do you just connect the back end of the entire Internet and hope it works? But it honestly it doesn't have to be that way because I want to tell you about the platform I use called Kajabi. Kajabi is the all in one platform that I personally use to manage my membership, my online courses, my classes, my workshops, my sales pages, my opt in pages and honestly, even my actual website is hosted on Kajabi. And let me tell you, it's a Lifesaver to have everything under one roof. So my website bonniecristine.com and the podcast's website professionalcreative.com are all entirely built out on Kajabi by me. I didn't have to hire a programmer or anyone else to come in because the designer is that easy to use. Kajabi honestly lets you say goodbye to the headaches of managing multiple platforms and connecting a million things. And it's like having a personal assistant for your online business because it also has a super intuitive interface and easy to use tools that help you manage your courses or your memberships or or your digital products. Kajabi's customer service team is also top notch. They are always there, always happy to help, and they're always rolling out new updates and they're always there to help you succeed. Trust me, I've put them to the test. So if you're ready to simplify your life and take your online business to the next level, head on over to bonniecristine.com forward/resources and sign up for Kajabi. Experience the free trial. I think you are going to love how it streamlines your business. Number one is time blocking. I am a huge fan of blocking times set times for different tasks in my business. This was a game changer for me when I learned how to do it. First time blocking is when you think about one project and then you identify how long you want to spend on it. And this could be sometimes 15 or 30 minutes, but most often for me it's blocks of 60 to 90 minutes and where you only do that one thing for that entire time block. This will really help you get in the state of flow. You know that state of flow when you're really, really into deep work and loving it and not being distracted by anything else and you're really getting a ton done. Actually. I'm always surprised at how much I can actually accomplish in a 60 minute time block when I'm just focused on the one thing at hand. And so I typically break up my day into three or four time blocks and I'll put a timer on for 60 or 90 minutes. Now I have this little tiny block that has all of these different times on it. It's got 15 minutes and 30 minutes, 60 minutes and 90 minutes. And it's not like a clock, it's a little block and all you do is set it on the side that says 60 minutes and the timer starts and then it will buzz when the time is up. And so I use that for my time blocks and I'll link that for you over in the show notes. So I'll schedule three or four time blocks in the day, and I'll tell you what, I put in those in a minute, and then I'll put breaks in between. So these breaks are what I use to wiggle in things in the margins. Like, I'll reward myself with, you know, aimlessly clicking around the web and checking email and checking on that thing that I forgot I needed to order and all of that little stuff, checking Instagram and things like that. And then I also make sure that I get up and walk and stretch and get some water and go to the restroom and things like that as well. Okay, so that's number one, time blocking. Number two is essential for time blocking, and that is to minimize distractions. We live in such a distracted world. We have a million things tugging at us at any given moment. We've got notifications and things buzzing and our watch telling us that we haven't gotten enough steps in yet, right? Let alone the distractions that we really take on ourselves. Because things. Things are starting to get hard. So we'll grab our phone and check Instagram or check our email or check Slack, check in with the team. And so really learning how to focus is our biggest superpower now in today's age. Our focus is our most limited resource yet. It's also our most powerful resource. And so if you can learn how to truly tap in to minimizing distractions and getting into that zone, zone, that highly focused state, you will do the best work of your life. And so this will often look different for different people. But for me, I often have to literally put my phone in another room because it's just my second nature to grab it when things get difficult and start checking things. Another thing that I typically have to do is close all of my tabs. So I do this thing where I've got too many tabs open and then I'll just click through, through them one by one as almost like my to do list reminder. And so in order to get into a minimal distraction time block, I actually have to close. Not like X out, delete or anything, but like, minimize all of the tabs and open just one window that has the one thing that I'm working on so that I can move past the distraction of all of the other tabs that are still open. This, for me, also typically looks like a fairly tidy workspace. Now, I'm okay with a little bit of stacking up of stuff, but if it gets too crazy, if it gets too out of hand. Then it's so distracting, it makes it really difficult for me to focus. And so sometimes I'll come in and the first thing I do is just kind of tidy up my desk and my workspace, because a clear space for me equals a clear mind. Now, things that I've heard other people do are like use noise canceling headphones or listen to music. I typically like to work in silence, but I know that that's a whole thing. Some people love silence. Some people love kind of that ambient music in the background. So whatever it is for you, identify it and then do it. Another one is sometimes changing places. And so I've actually learned that I record podcasts better when I'm at home. And I'm typically not at home. I'm at my office or what I call the studio. So I'm at home right now. And that's partly because our WI fi here is not really that great. And so I don't need WI fi to record this podcast. And so the Internet, even the capability of the Internet at my studio is a distraction for me. And I will feel kind of rushed as I'm. As I'm recording podcasts. And so I've just decided to stay home on the days that I'm recording. And it's so quiet and so peaceful here, and I don't feel rushed, and I don't have as many work distractions so that I can truly focus on this. So that's one example of how I'm doing that sometimes people just need to change locations. Like, maybe when you're at your computer, you're always designing and now you want to write. And so maybe you need to literally move and go sit in a place that you've never sat at before to write. Okay, so number one was time blocking. Number two was minimize distractions. And number three is prioritizing tasks. So even with time blocks and even with minimizing distractions, there's still one more thing that has to happen, and it's this. It has to be that you understand the biggest rocks for your day. I typically call these a top three. So what top three things, if I accomplished today, would have me going to sleep tonight feeling like I won. Like I did the day I made progress. I moved the needle. I did it. Because if you're like me, we can oftentimes spend the day doing busy work and checking things off of a to do list. But then when we lay our head down at night, it's like, what did I do today? What did I really accomplish today other than just checking things and responding to things and replying to things? Right. Like what did I do that actually moves the needle? And so I like to have a top three, a top three list of things that would make me feel super accomplished if I got them done today. Obviously that's a reasonable. These three things are absolutely possible to accomplish today. Right. They're not too big because if they are too big, they just need to be broken down into other bite sized pieces that you can spread out over more than one day. Right. And then put these prioritized tasks into your time blocks. Now the breaks between your time blocks can be used for all of those other little to do's that are, you know, they're real, they're actually things you need to do, but they won't actually move the needle in your business very much. Okay, so I'm going to give you a bonus one. A bonus one. This is number four is just start. Just start the thing. I'm talking to me just as much as I'm talking to you. But we know that starting is the hardest part and yet we still put off starting. And so I'm here to give you a little kick in the rear and say get out of your own way and just start. When you're procrastinating on something that's important that you really do want to do, but it feels scary to start or overwhelming to start. Sometimes you just need to get out of your own way and, and start already. Because I promise you, once you just simply start, things will begin to unfold. It will immediately begin to feel easier and you will actually begin making progress on that big dream of yours. So if you're stuck procrastinating, maybe you just need to hear me say, get out of your own way. Let's go. Okay, let's go. Go. So with that, I'm going to wrap us up. Create the beauty that you want to see. Come alive in the world and remember, there's room for you. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.