PPI #2: Eliminate Procrastination with One Sentence

Have you ever sat down to work knowing exactly what you need to do, but for whatever reason, you just can't get started on a project or reading a report or completing a presentation. No matter what you do, you just sit there frustrated. Or picture the following. It's 9:00am you start working on something. It's 9:13. Suddenly you're in your inbox reading an email. The next thing you know you're on Google researching something that relates to that email. Suddenly somebody calls you, you pick up the phone, you have a brief conversation and now you suddenly look at the time and it's 9:47. And you've only worked on this presentation or report for a handful of minutes and now you got to get prepared for your next meeting. And then suddenly your whole day is gone from meeting to phone call by being bounced from one person's agenda to the next? This is exactly how I used to always feel. I've said in other videos, for example, that I feel like I was the world's number one procrastinator at one point in my life. That all of the work and the effort that I put in it just came way too painfully. It just took way too long to get stuff done. And I was horrible at minimizing distraction. I was the king of, of being susceptible to just about any distraction out there. A car goes by or suddenly there's a phone call or a notification comes through and then my mind is off and running onto a different thing.

But then a change happened for me, a series of changes really. And one of the most important books that I read on the subject of procrastination was a book called the Now Habit written by a guy named Neil Fiore. And that book had such a huge impact on me that I actually reached out to Neil the author and said, hey, could I schedule some sessions with you? Because I really wanted to overcome this procrastination habit. And I scheduled 16 one hour sessions with Neil. Now Neil is a trained psychologist who focuses on productivity, engineering and mental toughness. And he's got this absolute sweet spot, this incredible level of expertise on the subject of procrastination and helping people produce far more. And one of the most amazing things that Neil gave me was a simple sentence which I want to give you today. And that sentence is, I choose to start for just five minutes and I have to break down this sentence into its three component parts for you to truly understand the power in this sentence and how you can be using it to beat procrastination. This literally is one sentence that can Help cure your procrastination tendencies. So it starts with acknowledging how we talk to ourselves. I want you to think about a typical situation or maybe a task or project that you're working on at the moment that brings in a sense of dread when you think about it. A project or a task that you want to work on. Think about that feeling. Think about that project or task right now. And now I want you to think about the sentence that typically comes to mind when you think about your need to work on that project. If you really think about it, you'll recognize that every time you feel the urge to procrastinate, the urge to not work on something, you have negative self talk going on rather than positive self talk. And your sentence will start with I have to or I should do something. Now I have to is language of oppression. It's suggesting that you should be doing something you know that you're not doing. And what's that going to. That's going to immediately create resistance within you. And the antidote or the response to that resistance is an escape plan. And procrastination presents that escape plan. So the moment you say to yourself, I have to do something, you're going to trigger procrastination, whereas I choose to. You're in control. You're not being forced to do something. You're in the driver's seat. And there's another magical part to that beginning phrase I choose to. It's not saying that you want to or you desire or you can't wait to. Because frankly, there's things, you know, I don't want to do my taxes. Who does? Like who in the world wants to do their taxes? Right? Right. Who in the world wants to finish filing their expenses? Who in the world wants to sit there and really focus on outlining that presentation like these hard or dreaded tasks that we, you know, that just aren't high up on our list. They always create this sense of, oh, you know, I don't want to do that thing. You know, it has that like yucky feeling to it. But you could still choose to do it. You don't need to want to do your taxes, but I can still choose to. So that's that first part of that phrase. And it's the power. It's the language of choice. Rather than negative self talk, it's positive self talk. The second key part of the phrase I choose to start for just five minutes is the start part. So if you were to go back to that dreaded task that you have in your mind and Think about the completion of that sentence. I have to. And it probably will continue with finish. I have to finish my taxes, for example. Now, finish immediately conjures up that word feelings of anxiety or overwhelm. Oh my God, how am I going to finish this? There's so much to do. I don't even know what all the steps are. And what do you think that's going to do? That's going to create more resistance. You're going to feel, you know what, let me just put this off. This is overwhelming because you're focusing on finishing and instead you could just focus on starting because we can all start. I could start to work on my taxes. I could start to work on a project or a task that I don't like. And by focusing on starting, if I continually start, finishing takes care of itself. That's another little gem that Neil shared with me. Just focus on continually starting and finishing takes care of itself. I just want to repeat that because it's a very powerful concept or phrase if you really embrace that kind of phrase within a phrase here. So I choose to start for just five minutes. So we talked about the power of choice with I choose. We talked about focusing on starting rather than finishing. The last part is for just five minutes. What's five minutes? We all have five minutes. It's 300 seconds. And when you think about starting for just five minutes, it doesn't feel so overwhelming. As a matter of fact, when I think back to various times that I've used this tactic, I don't even know when the five minutes has happened. I get so deeply into the task that five minutes goes by suddenly. I've been working out for 20 minutes, 27 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour or more. And when I continually do this, eventually the project or whatever it is, it just gets done. And so you can use this phrase, I choose to start for just five minutes continually throughout your day as an antidote to procrastination. You sit down for that project in the morning right before you get started. You say to yourself, I choose to start for just five minutes. Let's say that you're working on that project then and suddenly you become distracted recenter yourself. I choose to start for just five minutes again and keep using that phrase over and over and over throughout your day. And as I said earlier, as you focus on continually starting, the finishing will just take care of itself. Now if you'd like to go more deeply into this topic, some things that you could do. Absolutely. I would grab a hold of Neil's book The Now Habit. It's an absolute gem. It's filled with great advice. You'll find not only the power of positive self talk in that book what I've just taken you through, but you'll find countless other tools and tactics that you can use to strategically overcome procrastination so that you too can grow from being a procrastinator in your mind to a super producer. Because look, I know how it feels. I've been where you are right now. I know how frustrating it is to think that you're never going to break three break free from these procrastination habits. I know how frustrating it is to sit there and think that there's just not enough hours in the day, or that you're just irritated with your inability to maintain your focus. I know exactly how all of those things feel. And this isn't the only answer to solving your procrastination. But certainly this approach to positive self talk, this language of choice, the focus on the start rather than the finish, and compartmentalizing things into just five minutes. It's a fantastic tool and a fantastic place for you to begin. So I hope you've enjoyed that. And if you are interested in other high performance insights or topics, if you'd like advice on building a better company, how you can overcome procrastination, become a better leader, or just simply achieve all the things that you want to achieve in life without sacrificing your health and relationships. If that kind of talk or those kind of ideas float your boat, head over to my website@erikpartaker.com where you can subscribe to my weekly High Performance Insights newsletter.