#029 - Sometimes You Need to Strategically Procrastinate

Welcome back to the Hit Splits Podcast. My name is Shelly Hitz and today we're going to talk about when you need to strategically procrastinate. The word procrastination really gets a bad rap in the world, right? Especially for writers. It's like we often get stuck in this cycle of procrastination for writing our book. There always seems to be the tyranny of the urgent. Other things come up or with marketing where, you know, towards doing other things. And most authors are not doing this full time. It's, you know, it's a side thing or it's a ministry. And so it's not your full time focus. So it's easy to let everything else take priority. So procrastination gets a bad name and we start to feel bad, like, oh, I'm procrastinating, I need to, I need to be doing these things. And yet I want to tell you that sometimes there is wisdom in strategically procrastinating. In the last episode I started to talk about this and so I decided to do an entire episode on it. And one of the things that I really believe has made me successful in online business as a writer selling books is this whole concept of strategically procrastinating. What it really means is prioritizing.

Prioritizing. What is your most important task to get done today? I am a multi passionate creative entrepreneur and so I can get going in a million directions any time of the day. And I will tell you, I have to rein myself in again and again. I mean, even just a few months ago, I was like doing two different things and you know, I was just, I was splitting my time and you know, they say if you try to chase two rabbits, you won't catch either of them. You know, there's books like Essentialism and you know, One Thing and you know, all the, the things that you talk about, choosing one thing. So I understand and I have to keep doing this over and over and over again. But years ago I, it was early, early, early on and I hired my first business coach and she started asking me some questions, had me fill out kind of a questionnaire. And basically she came back to me and she said, shelly, do you realize you basically have like six, seven different businesses or seven different niches, seven different things that you're doing? I was like, no, I didn't realize. And at the time, you know, I'd quit my physical therapy job and we were just trying to find ways to pay the bills, right, to survive. And I was trying all the things and sometimes it's good. Like it's like throwing spaghetti on the wall. Like you're trying all the things, see, seeing what sticks, seeing what's profitable, seeing what's what, what, you know, lights you up the most. And at that time, she really helped me narrow it down that mentoring authors was not only what really was the passion for me, but would also bring the most income. You know, at the time I was also selling advertising for authors and that was fun and it was helping people. And because I'm good at marketing, I was building a marketing platform everyone else to sell their books. And it was a win, win, win. It really was. But it was only bringing in a few hundred dollars a month. It was not going to be enough to sustain our bills, you know, to pay our bills, to sustain us. And so anyways, you know, I began this whole journey and process of learning how to prioritize. Now for me personally, what I do, because I do this full time and we do pay our bills on this. Like my husband doesn't have another job and you know, we don't have other, some, you know, inheritance or you know, other income that we're relying on. Like we, we rely on faith in God to provide what we need every month to pay our bills, to pay our team, to put food on our table. Like, you know, that's our situation. And so it's very unique. A lot of the, the women entrepreneurs I know, their husbands also work and so it takes the pressure off. And not that, not that it's pressure, but it's just different. So anyways, when I prioritize, for me personally, I'm always prioritizing what is going to bring the income, the profit, you know, what is, what is going to bring the most.

Profit into our business. And then the second thing I tend to prioritize is what's going to grow our email list. Because for me, that's the, the core of our business. That's, that's what we really have seen over the years, has driven sales. The most is our email list. And so if I can grow our email list, then that is typically going to bring new people into our world that could potentially want to purchase a product from us, want to join our membership, etc. Etc. So for you it could be something different. Like I said, if you are writing your first draft for you, your priority is getting your writing time in. So Even if it's 15 minutes for the day, just sit in your chair, write a paragraph because it just keeps the momentum moving forward. And you know, if you are in the Self publish stage. Like if you're working on publishing, your priority is to begin, you know, making the decisions and going through the steps. So in Christian Book Academy we have a step by step process on how to publish your book and we go through all the steps and it's all right there for you, you know, and you know, one day you might be choosing your categories, one day you might be writing your description, one day you might be working with your formatter. I mean, there's different steps. So if you're in the self published stage, that's your, your priority and maybe your priority is to, to hire the people that can help you and we give you recommendations for that in Christian Book Academy as well. If you're in the book launch or book marketing phase, then your, your priority may be to begin growing your email list or to begin building this audience and be, you know, selling more books. Obviously you know, those types of things. So anyways, you need to know like, what is your priority? What, what are your top goals? And so for me, since it's typically bringing an income because we have to, we have to pay our bills if we're going to continue this ministry, if we're going to continue doing this for you, then, then we have to be able to earn enough to keep the lights on basically. Right. You know, and so for me it's like, okay, what are, what is going to bring in income? And then two, what is going to grow my email list? And I will say that over the last year and a half, something that we found that's worked really well for us, that's grown our email list, but it's also brought in income and has, you know, increased. The members of Christian Book Academy are hosting online conferences now, some people call them summits, you know, things like that. And I'm going to try this year to, to do it a little bit differently. We'll, we'll see how it goes, what the results are, you know, and try to do a one day event, make it less overwhelming for you, easier for our speakers, easier for us, but yet impactful. So small but mighty. Right? So, you know, that's what we've seen and so we're, I'm really focusing on that this year. And for you it might be, like I said, something different for you. You might realize when you come to our virtual writing retreats and Christ Book Academy, we host them every month, that you make a lot of progress on your manuscript and most people do, or that you really make a lot of progress in your marketing because, you know, you have that focused time, the accountability, you know, to sit down to, to do the tasks, to, you know, you know, continue the writing. So if that's true, then, you know, you would prioritize going to those retreats. Look at the calendar. We have like all of 2023 pretty much ma. So look at, look at our, in our member area and look at those dates already. Go into your calendar and put those, you know, save those dates and, and make a priority to come. Even if it's for a day, even if it's just for half a day, because you know that that is working for you. And so strategically procrastinate the other things. So what might be cropping up is feeling like you need to learn all the things right now. You know, when you join Christian Book Academy, there's a lot of training in there and you could spend all your time going through the training. That's not the point. We don't want you to do that. But when you need the training, it is going to be there for you. So right now you may need to strategically procrastinate going through all of these other trainings and focus on what it, it is you need to do right now. You know, it might be strategically procrastinating a certain marketing event or whatever it is because right now you're focusing on SEO or you're focusing on Pinterest or you're focusing on whatever it is that you're focusing on. You know, you don't want to get too sidetracked and doing, you know, too many things. Now with marketing, you're always going to be doing multiple things, but what is, what is your main focus? What is it that really lights you up, that really works for you, that works for your audience? And we kind of help you decide that in our book promotion plan workshop. So if you are just not sure, I encourage you to go through that. It's in the marketing workshops in Christian Book Academy or you can purchase it on thebookmarketingshop.com but strategically procrastinating is hard. It is hard and I've had to do that so many times over the last three to four years. God has really led me to focus on Christian Book Academy. And like I said, I'm a multi passionate entrepreneur and so I have started businesses related to my art, related to fitness, related to other things. And back in 2019, I was making quite a bit of money with my art and I was really moving forward in that. And I, I sensed the Lord saying, shelly, I want you to focus on Christian Book Academy. And that was hard. It was so hard, especially when you're seeing, like, something working right. And yet I knew that, like, I enjoy my art, but doing it as a business was taking the joy out of it for me. So, like, during that season, that was when we rebranded Christian Book Academy was in 2019. It used to be Author Audience Academy for those of you that are new around here. And I let go of the art stuff. Now there's certain things that are still running on autopilot or, you know, like, I still have a list of over 10,000 people related to my art business. I mean, isn't that crazy? Like, most people would be like, well, then why aren't you focusing on that?

That list is bigger than my author list. I think we have, like 8,000 on our author list. But it's because it's what the Lord showed me to do. It's what our calling is. It's what. What our. Our biggest passion is, too. I mean, I could talk about all of these things related to writing, publishing, and marketing books forever. I mean, you know, I. I've talked a lot even already on this podcast. We already have, like, probably, I don't know, 300 and some episodes on my Kingdom Writers podcast. But it's something that I don't think I'll ever run out of things to talk about, to teach about all this stuff. So anyways, in 2019, he had me focus on that, and I really let go of doing much with my art business. It was hard. It was hard, but it was profitable. And not right away. You know, the. The prophets haven't come, you know, right away, but it's profitable in that we're seeing lives changed. We're seeing God work, right? We're seeing the results of that open the step of obedience. And then last year in 2022, I really was getting. Getting the fitness business off the ground. For those of you that don't know, I was a physical therapist previously. And so I got fitness certifications, nutrition coaching certifications. And the Lord again, he. He was like, shelly, I want you to focus in on Christian Book Academy. And I was like, oh, because I love doing all the things right. I love it. But it was this strategically procrastinating. Now, I'm not saying I'll never go back to focusing more on those other businesses. They're still there. The email lists are still growing, and I still occasionally will send things out to them or, you know, like, I was in a summit for Etsy and was able to, you know, earn income through that but also just participate in that. And it didn't take much time or energy or effort. But, you know, occasionally I can do something like that. But I'm telling you this to tell you I have done it and I understand you. You know, it is hard. Like even this year I'm still like reigning myself back because my focus is growing Christian Book Academy. If you hear something, it's C.J. making his coffee. I usually get up before him. But anyways, this year it was, you know, or yeah, this year it's going to be, you know, strategically procrastinating. A lot of other things I could do in order to host these one day conferences, see how that goes and go from there. So anyways.

Be diligent of, you know, prioritizing and asking the Lord what is my focus and what do I need to strategically procrastinate on? What is, what is it that you're, you're trying to do that you don't need to do right now? You know, maybe you just need to finish your book or maybe you're trying to learn all the things and maybe you just need to focus on one thing like, you know, pitching yourself to podcast host to get interviewed. You know, maybe that's just. Maybe you just need to focus on that one thing for this year or this quarter or whatever it is. So anyways, I hope that this was challenging. It is challenging, but also encouraging to you that you don't need to do everything, that God will show you what to focus on and he will give you the way to go. And even if you do get off track, I do. Often the Lord is able to reign us back in, to bring us back to where it is that we need to be. So Lord, thank you so much that you are with us, that you are guiding us, you are leading us, that as we connect with you, that you will show us which path to take and what we need to strategically procrastinate on. So we thank you for this, Lord. We thank you for what you're doing and we just want to give you all the glory, honor and praise for what you're doing with our writing, with our books, with our marketing. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Friends, thanks for being here and I will talk to you in the next episode. Bye bye.