How to Stop Procrastinating & Get Work Done

This podcast is brought to you by NZ Mortgages, our valued sponsor. You can check them out at nzmortgages Co nz. Are you feeling stuck? Do you find yourself avoiding the tasks that you know you need to do, but you just can't seem to get around to completing them? Well, in this video, we'll do a deep dive into procrastination. We'll talk about why you might be procrastinating hacks to help you. Say goodbye to procrastination. And I'll share some epic advice from productivity expert David Allen. Let's get into it. Let's have some fun. Welcome back to the show. For those that are returning, so good to see you again. For those that are new, welcome. Please hit subscribe, leave me a rating and review. I would sincerely appreciate it, whatever platform you're listening in on. So good to see you. So, procrastination, none of us want it, but we've all got it. None of us are perfect. We are not robotic, we are not AI. We have flaws. We have human tendencies. That's what makes us imperfect. But there are certain things that we can do to influence our ability to be motivated intrinsically rather than always relying on rewards and power and money and fame, all that extrinsic stuff. The intrinsic stuff is what can we do that gives us meaning? When we do things that give us meaning, there's a discretionary effort. We go the extra mile. You see, recently I watched the Springboks, a South African rugby team, and they were playing Ireland and on home ground, they were in South Africa and the national anthem, the stadium, the sun was setting. It was so incredible. Unbelievable sense of meaning and purpose. And you can see that the Springboks, you know, one of the most, well, number one team on the planet, let's face it. They have so much meaning behind what they do in. If you had the same thing around, the key things you wanted to complete, you would have no problem with them. The indecision and of course, the procrastination would not be there. So we're going to talk a little bit about what are some of the hacks that we can do and use to help us move forward. But the most important thing is this. If you're struggling to do certain things, then you're clearly not connected to the outcome of why you're doing the thing. So it's important. Here's an example. Gym passes. People get gym passes all the time and yoga passes, and they go three, four, five times, then they don't go, then they keep paying but they don't go why? They haven't connected a deep enough purpose or meaning to why they're doing the thing. It's the same with our administration tasks like spreadsheets and reconciling invoices. Some people that has deep meaning, lots of people it doesn't. So it's about going, how can I attach more meaning to the task that I need to do laundry? I don't like the thing at all, but how can I attach more meaning? Well, that means I will have clothes that smell pleasant. People will probably have a better time being around me. I will also take the load, so to speak, off my partner who tends to do more laundry than I do. That's not good enough, James. Right, so I need to attach more meaning going, there's going to be multiple positive benefits for me and others that's going to give me more connection. There's going to be less procrastination. So if you're really struggling, that's the starting point. Let me share with you. Some just hacks. So I've had David Allen on the show a few times. Worldwide best selling author on productivity. He created a methodology called gtd get things done. Right. So he is phenomenal. He understands the human psychology, but he's also got these very simple concepts. I'm going to share a few of them with you and a few others that I've picked up along the way. To number one, have a centralized capture method. What on earth does that mean? Sounds like a big old word and sentence. All it means is you've got to have one place that you capture all of your action items. Guess what we call that a to do list. Most of us are familiar with a to do list and we don't get super excited by to do lists very often. We have to have one place. Not a little note on the fridge, another one in the car, another a note on your phone, a list on notion on your computer. That won't work. We need one centralized capture method. Look, I have a really simple way of doing it. I have an iPhone note, just a simple note. It's a free app just called Notes. And in there I've got decisions to be made as one of the titles. Conversations with Caroline is another title. People to follow up with is another title. And James to do urgently is another one. And underneath them are little circles, little boxes or whatever we need to check. And I check them off methodically. I put things in order there so I might be in the middle of something, go oh God, I got to do the thing, pick up something from the grocery store, email back, John, whatever it might be. So I put that in the capture list and then get straight back to what I'm doing currently. Otherwise I would be like a ping pong ball, constantly doing one task to another to another. And I do capture catch myself doing that from time to time. Do you do that? I imagine if you're human, you probably do. I'm going to urge you to try and reduce that. Because none of us can multitask. Science proves it. We can task switch, but there's time lost between each task that we're switching between and our ability to focus goes down and down and down. Every time we switch task, we dilute our focus. And remember this, when you dilute your focus, you dilute your results. So have a centralized capture system. Keep it really simple. Mine's an iPhone note costs me nothing. I also share that note with my partner and my team. So they can add things, they can tick off things. It keeps it very simple. Next, utilize micro minutes. What do I mean by that? Well, there's so many minutes that we simply fritter away. Got a couple of minutes because a client didn't show up. Great, I'll go on Instagram. Got a couple of minutes between when the kettle boils and I need to pour that cup of coffee. Oh, cool. I'll just go on Facebook and scroll. I'll go to the news website. See those little minutes? Sometimes those little minutes can be used to go into your capture list and go, oh, I got an email in the bank to say I'm going away overseas and they need to make a note on my card. That's a two minute task. But often that one task of emailing the bank or calling the insurance company or whatever it might be that goes down the list, down the list. And your to do list keeps getting bigger. If we were just to take a few of those micro moments that we scroll social media or consume negative news, man, oh man, it could make a massive difference if you took 12 to 15 minutes a day, 2 minutes here, 3 minutes here, 1 minute here, 4 minutes here, to look at your capture list and go, what one task could I do right now? Oh, I could do that one. I haven't emailed my agent back. I better email them back. So I want you to think about utilizing the micro minutes. Number three, what gets scheduled gets done. For those of you that have had me come in and train your companies or listen to me speak on stage, you'll know when it comes to high performance That I use that sentence a lot. What gets scheduled gets done. When you say I should get the thing done or I should really get round to that, you're a should head. I'm a should head at times and parts of my life. When you're a should head, you should all over yourself. A shoulda. I coulda. A woulda. We want to get away from that and get back to what's most important. And what gets scheduled, gets done. If it's on the calendar, it's not a should, it's a must. And the difference between a should and a must is emotion. A should is like, eh, cool, we'll get around to it. A must has urgency. Gotta do it, let's go. So when we put things on the calendar, that's a date, that's a date with yourself, that's a date with someone else, that's an appointment, that's a call. And you don't miss those things. They're commitments. You commit to them. So if you're procrastinating, I promise you a way to beat that is to put the thing in the calendar and say, at 5am I will. Boom. Go to the gym, journal, exercise, whatever it might be, spend time with the family, cook an amazing breakfast. What gets scheduled gets done. If you've lots of white space on your calendar and you procrastinate, you know what the issue is? You just are not placing your focus where you need it to be. And I find this really confronting when I first thought of this and a mentor took me through this. God, I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that I'm not being effective and productive. But actually, I was procrastinating on things that caused me this ambient anxiety, this background anxiety that I didn't even know was there, but it was just there because so many little things weren't completed. There were so many open loops. Let's close those loops. So what gets scheduled gets done. Put the important stuff on your calendar. When I work with a client, one to one, and we're on the phone or in person, say, okay, so list the three things that your priority this week. Oh, this, this, this. Okay. What tasks do you need to do every day? This one. This one. Okay, great. Put them in your calendar. Okay. No, I will do. I'm like, no, let's pause. Let's do it right now. Let's just get. Let's go. So I'm right there to hold space and hold accountability. Now, not all of us work with coaches or mentors but we can be our own Jiminy Cricket and hold ourselves and our conscience to a higher standard by simply going, I will do the thing. I must do the thing. It's now scheduled. I promise you your procrastination will start to diminish. Last but not least, reward yourself. It's so important that we give ourselves a reward. We've talked in previous sessions about the habit loop. Three components. One's the trigger, something that triggers the behavior. Second is the behavior. And third is a reward. And that reward releases dopamine and those good feel neurotransmitters when they get released. We want to do the thing again. We want to go back and do the behavior because it felt good. But if we're doing the thing that sets hoovering, cleaning the shower, end of year tax returns. If we're doing those things and there's no rewards at the end, then we're probably not very motivated to do them. So we will procrastinate, insert a little reward. Could be small, it could be a cup of coffee, could be a little tiny piece of chocolate. It could be I get to go and connect with my friends. It could be even bigger depending on what you're doing. It could be a vacation, could be a new book, could be a piece of clothing. But tie in a reward system where there's areas of procrastination. It's going to help you to get motivated and tap in to the neuroscience. And the neuroscience shows that there's triggers, behaviors and rewards and that creates a loop, this amazing loop. And it can be obviously positive or negative. If it's an empowering habit, it's positive. If it's disempowering, it's negative. So I want you to really think about procrastination. Where does it show up in your life? Write a list of the things you normally procrastinate. Calling your mother, maybe? That's one. Emailing people back. You open the email, you look at it, you read it. Well, I'll mark it as unread and get back to them later. How about you make a habit of. I'm not going to look at any email or open any email unless I know I'm going to have time to respond. And so you schedule. What gets scheduled, gets done. You schedule block time throughout the day or some people call it chunk time. But a block or a chunk of time, that's my email check in time. Maybe it's 8am and 3pm are two one hour blocks of email. And if you can't clear your emails in two hours a day. You need an ea, you need an assistant, you need some processes, you need to unsubscribe from a bunch of junk mail. So I want you to think about scheduling. I want you to consider having a centralized method. I want you to utilize those micro minute that you have in the day and just reward yourself. Have a bit of fun with it. Procrastination is not something you were born with. It's a decision. And you're only one decision away from beating procrastination. So I hope you enjoyed the session. I hope there were some key takeaways. Please do let me know. As you know now in the show, in the show notes, you can actually message me directly. I always love hearing from you. So if you've got anything that's worked for you, anything you're struggling with, potential guest you want me to bring on the show, please do let me know. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose. This podcast is brought to you by NZ Mortgages, our valued sponsor. You can check them out at nzmortgages Co NZ.