#185: How to Overcome Procrastination

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia. And this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. You can find detailed show notes for this episode@b2b launcher.com forward/episode 185. And those notes include a summary of our discussion here today, as well as any links to resources I might mention during the show. Today we're going to be talking about a topic that's near and dear to our hearts as writers and creative professionals. And that is a topic of procrastination, something I think I could actually get a master's degree on. I think if I look hard enough, I have enough credits to get my PhD so I can speak about this very credibly. And I think you probably, dear listener, know this topic very, very well. However, let's face it, this is something that if we could deal with more effectively, it would make our lives and our businesses so much better. So let's talk about this today because I think so much of the issue of procrastination has to deal with how we think about it, how we see it and how we actually deal with it in ways that are sustainable, in ways where we can actually make real effective long term change. So let me give you a scenario that might sound very familiar to you. Let's say you have a client deliverable that's due in three days, yet you've yet to dive into the project. You've had two weeks, so it's really not. And you probably make all the excuses, right? Well, I had this and then this happened. I get it. Listen, let's just be honest, right? Those are excuses. If this is something you really wanted to do, something extremely fun, you would have gotten it done, okay? But for whatever reason, and we're going to talk about reasons here in a few minutes. You haven't even started. It's due in three days. And let's just call it what it is. It's procrastination. You've been procrastinating. So what's the solution? What do you do? Well, you hunker down, right? You work like a crazy person for two and a half days nonstop, maybe pull a really late night on the last night, maybe even an all nighter and you get it done. But let's be honest here this is not the way we want to live. I don't know about you. I suspect you're like I am and that you signed up for something very different. Sometimes I know I felt like, you know what? It's like. I signed up to have a term paper due two, three times a week. And I remember in school, those were like my most dreaded weeks when I had a paper due or some big project due and I couldn't wait to get out of school so that I didn't have that anymore. And then I felt sometimes like, here I am. I've just created a situation where I have term papers due every week. What in the world am I doing? This is not fun. Nobody wants to be in that situation. It's a huge barrier to progress, right? Procrastinating like this all the time, it creates all kinds of stress, hampers creativity, and it even leads to feelings of shame, of guilt and imposter syndrome, because these are things that nobody wants to admit they're procrastinating. I mean, sometimes we do and we can be self deprecating and just like I started off the show and we can make fun of it and make light of it and that's all cool, right? But really deep down inside, nobody wants to be seen as somebody who procrastinates all the time. It's like it almost feels like, well, if that's the way you are and people see you that way, they're going to think that you don't have your act together or you don't know what you're doing, or you're not a real pro. People who are pros, they have their act together, right? They don't procrastinate. They don't do this. They don't. So let me just dispel that myth right off the bat. Look, everyone procrastinates, okay? Everyone procrastinates to some degree. And if they say they don't, they're either lying or they don't recognize it. They're extremely optimistic and they actually kind of downplay a lot of these things and just kind of sweep them under the rug and then they just show you the highlight reel of their work life. Everyone procrastinates to some extent. Some people more than others, of course. But nobody is immune from this malady. I think if we are going to start overcoming constant procrastination and really the stressful kind where you don't really deal with it the right way, I think that's really the issue here, right? Look, you're always going to procrastinate and as you'll see here in a few minutes, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just a natural human condition, natural human thing. So if that's going to continue to happen, instead of fighting it, let's use it to our advantage. Let's use it as a way to maybe stop and think about the situation, dig into the reasons for it, and then start solving the problem as opposed to something that we're ashamed about, we feel guilty and causes all the stress and anxiety in our lives. So a couple of things and really have two core suggestions that I'm going to dive into a little bit deeper and give you some practical steps under each one. The first thing you have to do is you want to identify the core reason why you are procrastinating. Now, I should tell you that a lot of my thinking around this has come from Dean Jackson and Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach, okay. Who have really been talking about this topic for a while, have really been unpacking it. And just their ideas and how they think of it has really shifted my mindset around the topic and have helped me understand that procrastination can actually be a good thing because it can force you to now dig deeper, find core reasons, and then deal with them. Especially if it's something that everyone's going to have to deal with, right? So if you know it's going to come, then you know what. Rather than trying to fight it, how can I find some tools to help me deal with it better? So that first idea really, really important. Identify the core reasons why you're procrastinating. Let me give you some of the ones that I deal with. And I'm still kind of thinking through this, so this is still kind of a newer thing for me. I might add some other core reasons, but I've thought about this for months. In almost everything new that I've thought of falls under one of these reasons I'm going to give you. Okay? In no particular order, lack of clarity. So maybe you're not really sure what you need to complete this or to move it forward. You're not really sure the direction. You're not really sure how you're supposed to tackle it. You're not really sure where to find the information. You're not really sure what exactly you want to accomplish. So really just the lack of clarity can be a source of stress and can be a source of procrastination. Now, the human brain is a really interesting thing. We essentially are programmed to do some very basic things okay. And that's really it. After that, everything has really evolved from there. And it's kind of a newer part of the brain that's still not fully developed. But our lizard brain is really just designed to get us to eat, right, to find an energy source to conserve energy and to reproduce. That's really kind of our core functions. So eat, conserve energy, and reproduce. And I think a big reason, and I haven't looked into studies, but just I've kind of deduced that a big reason why you procrastinate is this clarity issue. If I don't have clarity, it feels like it's going to take so much brain power to figure it out that my brain just wants to move on and just set that aside and move on to something easier. That's the conserve energy part of the brain. Okay? And this is why habit development is so important, because, I mean, we're basically just a bundle of habits. Habits are our brain's way of conserving energy. It's like, look, we need to automate some of these processes, Ed. And I don't care what it is, but as long as we keep you alive, we want to make sure that we automate as many things as possible. Because if we have to think about this all the time, we're going to have to use all this energy. And our directive is to keep you alive and make sure that you have energy stores. And believe me, I got plenty of energy stores. So clarity, lack of clarity, is a big one. The other one, another one that comes up for me many times, is confidence, lack of confidence. I know what I need to do. So maybe I do have the clarity, but I'm not sure if I have what it takes to pull it off. At least right now. I just don't feel like I have the skill set. I have the experience, I have the information, I have all the facts. I just don't feel like I'm ready. So the confidence is a really big one. That one's kind of a surprise for me as I started thinking about it, realized, you know what, that's its own separate category, confidence. Okay, so that's another good one. Along those lines is the skill or capability. So it's a little bit different because, you know, if you have the skill, capability, you probably have the confidence. But I do feel that that's its own separate thing. It's not so much the confidence, but I just don't feel I understand what I need to do or, like, that's part of clarity, too. But I don't feel I have the skill necessary, with the knowledge necessary or the capability necessary to get this done, to push us through, to get it done and get it done based on what the client wants and expects. Okay, that could be another one. It's like, my gosh, how am I going to get this done? I don't feel I'm competent. I don't think I'm capable of doing it. Overwhelm is another one. Now this is a big one. This is one that I think creeps up for me quite a bit. I'm just so overwhelmed. I look at this project, I look at this to do list and I just didn't even know where to start. And of course this, because it makes so much sense, instead of just starting somewhere, I do nothing. Okay. Something really weird and twisted about that. Right. In human psychology, I can't figure it out. I don't know where to start. So I'm going to do nothing. Oh yeah, that's progress right there. So yeah, Overwhelm is a big one. Many times I just don't know what I need to do. I'm just overwhelmed, anxious, and it's just again, easier for my brain to just shut down than it is to try to process and just wade through all that information and all those decisions. Time management is another and this is kind of related to Overwhelm, but I feel is different because this is really about trying to pack way too much into a day or into a week. It just like you can't get it done. I mean, if you look at it and of course that can lead to overwhelm, but if you're trying to do way, way too much and by 10 o' clock in the morning, you're already like way, way behind. Not only are you going to feel overwhelmed, but really what's happening is it's really a time management issue or scheduling issue. Like you're just either being completely unrealistic or you're not managing yourself very well, just not being a good manager of your time and your resources. So that could be a factor. Another one, this one's interesting and it goes back to again that just human biology, the perceived energy required to get this done. So let me look at what I need to do next. And you look at it and it just feels. It's kind of tied to Overwhelm. But it's a little different. It's a little more nuanced in that it just feels like between A and B, A just feels so hard. It's going to require so much thought and energy that that feels like work. What's B? What's the next thing on the list? Oh, B, I got to just read. Read that. You know what? I'll read that. That seems easier. So it feels like the thing you gotta do. It's gonna require way too much brainpower. Or at least right now, based on the time of day, you don't have that kind of energy. I do believe that you have different levels and types of energy throughout the day. Sometimes something that might be easy for you in the morning would be very difficult in the late afternoon or evening, and vice versa. So the perceived energy required at that time for that particular task or project, it's just too high. So you put it off. And then finally the item, the task, the activity falls just way outside your zone of genius or your zone of excellence. So what do I mean by that? Okay, so I heard about this, and I've heard this in a couple of places. But one book that really gets into this deeply is the book the Big Leap by Guy Hendricks or Gay Hendricks rather. And he talks about the zone of excellence, which is where many of us play. And we're assuming when we're in the zone of excellence that this is it, man. This is where we do our best work. This is what we're meant to do. But the fact is, zone of excellence is not what's going to bring you the biggest joy, satisfaction, income and rewards. The zone above that, that's called a zone of genius. It's a smaller zone where your biggest gifts, that's where they lie. And if you were doing work or you have a task that's outside of, I would say both of those. Zone of genius, zone of excellence. So zone of competence, I believe is under that. Then it just doesn't feel like something I want to do. So for instance, just doing administrative work, doing some audio editing, video editing, compiling something that's just repetitive and just like just talking about it right now, I feel the energy just leave my body. There's certain things, I don't do those things well. They're not even in my zone of excellence. And. And I don't want to do them. And when I see them on my to do list, I will procrastinate. Okay, so really, again, clarity, you don't have the clarity. You don't have the confidence. You maybe don't have the skill or capability. You are overwhelmed. You have a time management or self management issue again there it could be just trying to pack in too much. The perceived energy required is too high at that moment or it could lie outside of your zone of genius or your zone of excellence. Okay? So the first thing you want to do here is when you know you're procrastinating is, you know, I think. Let me just insert a step here. It's just admit it, okay? Be honest, just come right out, come clean, say, you know what? I'm procrastinating. Okay, you got me. You got me. I'm procrastinating. Then the second thing is just asking yourself, okay, why? Let me think about this. Which one of these is it about? Or is it a combination of these? Okay? Just really, until you identify that, it's going to be very difficult for you to start addressing it. So identify the core reason or reasons behind this. Usually going to be one, and it could be related to others. But really at the center of it all, there is that big reason. Once you have that, what I'm finding works really, really well is to identify and deal with or act on what I like to call a gateway action. So you've probably heard of a gateway drug, right? It's a drug that if people take that, there's a good chance that that's going to lead to other heavier drugs. Okay? So I hate kind of the negative implication of this, but I know this is a great way for people to remember this concept, gateway action. Okay? So it's an action that if you just like with a drug, if you were to take that action, there's a very good chance that. That it will send you down the right path of other actions that are going to get you closer to completing that item or that project. Okay? So this is something that I've only been doing recently, but it's. The impact has been significant. So here is my definition right now. And again, I'm still playing around with this, but a lot of this has come from Dean and from Dan. Gateway action's got to take 10 minutes or less to complete. Okay. And I know that sounds. Wow, that's really not a lot of time. Exactly. It's called gateway for a reason. It's got to be attractive enough in terms of time commitment that you're almost going to feel silly not doing it, because, come on, you don't have 10 minutes. So 10 minutes, it should be extremely simple and it should feel attractive. So 10 minutes. Simple and attractive. And attractive meaning, like, yeah, I actually want to do that. In fact, let's dive in. Let's get it done. I'll give you some examples. Doing 10 minutes of brainstorming. Okay, I got this big white paper My gosh, I gotta like come up with a draft here in just five days. I've done all this research. I got this pile of stuff printed out, you know, what about just spending? I already got the information, I've poured through it all. What about spending 10 minutes just brainstorming ideas or mind mapping the project or outlining that article that I've been putting off? Okay, so brainstorming or mind mapping for me are 10 minutes or less simple. And it's something I find attractive. I can do that all day long. You know, these are easy things for me and I think there are easy things for many writers. Other examples could be, again, just kind of sticking with let's say a client project. You got the stack of research or background materials. Okay, I'm going to take that first article on the top of the stack and I'm going to read that. And based on the page count. Oh yeah, I can read that in 10 minutes or less. Okay. Okay. So that's a gateway action. Maybe it's a quick call. I've been putting this off because you identify the reason and then you realize, you know what, I need to call Jim and just get clarity on this issue. Now that I've identified, it was really a clarity issue. So let me pick up the phone and call Jim. Okay, that's ten minutes or less. Maybe it's delegating or outsourcing the tasks. Maybe it's like, you know, I keep putting this off because maybe it's overwhelm. I'm going to just pop into the other room and ask my spouse, listen, is there any way you can take this on? Would you be able to do this for me, please? And I say, you know, absolutely. Like, I'm just really overwhelmed. I could really use your help. Can you just take this off my plate? That's an easy 10 minute action. Right? So sometimes delegating, outsourcing or asking for help. And then finally I would say just kind of reviewing the situation, which might seem kind of weird, but just reviewing what you do have, just as a, you know what, I'm just, my head's not there and I've been out of this for two weeks and I can't wait any longer. Let me just review the situation and see where I am and just kind of get back into it. But I'm going to set a timer only for 10 minutes because again, if it feels like this is going to take longer than that, I might continue to procrastinate. So the gateway action could be, I'm just going to set a timer for 10 minutes and just review what I have, review where I left off, and maybe just jot down a few bullet points on what's next. Okay, that could be another gateway. You can probably think of a lot of other examples, but again, the definition or the criteria is 10 minutes or less. It's got to be simple, it can't be nebulous. And really when 10 minutes, you don't have a lot of choice. It's gotta be well defined, concrete, very simple, and it's got to feel attractive. Find some element of that big thing that, you know, what you wouldn't mind doing. I'm not saying you would love to do necessarily. That's why I call it attractive. It's attractive enough that you'll just jump in. So again, the first idea, guys, is look, just know that everyone procrastinates, right? And if they say no, they're lying. And to really use procrastination to your benefit, to actually make progress and not have it be a source of shame. And instead of be a tool to help you identify things that need attention, the first step is to identify the core reason or reasons behind the procrastination. And then once you know that is identifying one gateway action that you can take, preferably today, to get going on that. Of course, I think you can probably guess what's after that. Usually you could just find another gateway action. But I find that once you do one or two of these, you kind of get into the flow of the activity, the project, and things begin moving in the right direction. And now you have a little bit of momentum and that's really what we, most of us really need help with, is right, how can I get back into the flow, back into the river? Once I'm in the river, I know the current will take me. I'm confident the current will take me. But my problem is getting to the river. Okay, so how do I do that? How do I jump in? So I hope you found this helpful. Again, this is an idea that I'm continually to kind of develop. Would love to hear your feedback. If you got any ideas, thoughts, or if you use this and it actually helps you break through and start making progress on some things you've been putting off. Always love to hear success stories on how you're implementing some of these ideas. So drop me a line, let us know. Support2b launcher.com is the best way to do that. This has been Ed, Gambia, thanks so much for listening. I hope you have a great rest of the day. Take care The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher.com.