Episode 131: Still procrastinating? Cut yourself some slack and get curious!

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Welcome to Unfrazzle, a podcast for solo business owners with a big vision who are ready for a kinder, more sustainable approach to productivity.

I'm Louise Miller and each week I share bite size insights to help you step away from the hustle, stop faffing and stay focused so you can make your brilliant ideas happen and make a bigger impact in the world.

And before we dive into today's episode, if you enjoy what I'm sharing here on Unfrazzle and you'd like to support the podcast, you can buy me a cuppa by going to buymeacoffee.com louisemiller and making a one off donation. I'll pop a link to that in the show notes. Okay, grab yourself a cuppa and let's get started.

According to our old friend Google, procrastination is defined as 'the action of delaying or postponing something'. But according to Tim Urban, a more accurate definition is 'the action of ruining your own life for no apparent reason'.

That might be a little overdramatic, but I know from my clients and my community that procrastination is a huge productivity stumbling block that not only stops them from making progress in their business, but also stands in the way of enjoyable and guilt free rest.

So at best, procrastination is something really irritating that causes tasks to take longer than they need to, eating into time we'd rather spend doing something else, whether that's actually getting something done or sitting, taking a break, curled up with a book on the sofa.

But at worst, procrastination can lead to really debilitating anxiety, feelings of failure, self judgement, all of that really unpleasant insidious stuff that if left unchecked can really start to damage our self confidence and our self esteem.

As with so many things in life, we just want to be told the answer. We want to know the quick fix that will solve the problem in one fell swoop so we can crack on and achieve all of the amazing things we know we'd be capable of, if only that procrastination monkey would let us take the wheel for a change.

But there's no single solution that with a wave of a magic wand is going to work for everyone. And we know that, don't we?

And I'm not saying this to be defeatist, but because I want you to cut yourself some slack if despite your very best efforts, procrastination is still getting in your way. That doesn't make you a failure, it makes you human.

So of course I'm not suggesting that you give up. That there is nothing you can do about it, so you might as well admit defeat. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I want for you is for you to get curious.

To get curious about your own procrastination patterns and what does and doesn't work for you when it comes to getting that pesky procrastination monkey away from the controls.

And if you're wondering why I keep talking about a monkey, I will put a link to Tim Urban's brilliant TED talk about procrastination in the show notes. It's really, really good. Highly recommend.

So, in the spirit of experimentation, I'm going to share three very different ideas that you could play with to help with your procrastination.

So, number one, lift the lid. Often procrastination is a symptom of something that's going on under the surface.

Are you struggling with imposter syndrome? Is there some fear involved in the thing that you're procrastinating about? Maybe there's a lack of clarity around what you're doing and why?

Is there a deeper mindset issue at play that's causing you to reach for Instagram or LinkedIn when you should be working? So the first thing you can do is to just take a step back for a moment and see if you can get to the root of what's underlying that procrastination.

What is it that's actually going on? And when you know that, you can then start to bring some tools into play to counter whatever it is that that's coming up for you.

So that's the first idea is to lift the lid on it and get under the hood, poke around, see if you can figure out what's going on.

The second suggestion I have for you is to change your environment. So this is a more practical approach.

This is something you can perhaps do right now. And it may sound really obvious, but what if you could remove your procrastination tool of choice from your environment?

When you're curious about your patterns, you'll start to identify what you reach for most frequently when you're in procrastination mode. Whether it's your phone, maybe you open up loads of tabs on your browser, maybe you end up in YouTube. Um, maybe it's something else.

Maybe you get up and, I don't know, go and do the dishes or something. What is it that's coming up for you when you are in procrastination mode?

And what might you do to change your environment so that that doesn't trip you up anymore.

So, you know, simple suggestions could be to put your phone into flight mode, put it in a different room, set something up on your laptop to limit you actually going onto the site that you're using when you procrastinate.

I've been experimenting with actually turning off the Internet on my computer. I do a lot of my work just in word docs. I can be quite old school and I've turned off the Internet before now and I just keep noticing myself just clicking over to LinkedIn to see what's going on over there because maybe I'm starting to feel a bit bored or I'm just struggling to focus. So by turning off the Internet, that option's not available to me.

It could just be that you create some extra steps and some extra barriers that get in the way of, you know, reaching for your procrastination tools. So let's go back to that example of doing the dishes, for instance.

If that is something you might find yourself doing when you're procrastinating, what barriers can you create between you and doing the dishes?

So it might be that you close your office door, you close the kitchen door so that there are those moments of pause where you can think, do I really want to be doing this? You could hide the washing up liquid, I don't know. Just think creatively.

What can you do in your environment that will make it harder for you to, to reach for those procrastination tools that stop you from getting your work done?

And the third suggestion I have for you comes back to that TED Talk that I mentioned earlier, Tim Urban's brilliant TED talk.

And this is all about unleashing the panic monster. So if you've watched that TED Talk, you'll know that the panic monster is the only thing that the procrastination monkey is afraid of.

And when it shows up, stuff gets done, but unfortunately it often doesn't show up unless there's a deadline or some sort of negative consequence to protect you from. So what if you could unleash the panic monster before the situation becomes dire?

What if you could set, you know, lots of small deadlines? Maybe getting some accountability, if you know that accountability works well for you? What can you do to try and unleash that panic monster, but in a way that's not going to completely fry your nervous system, getting that balance between it helping you get the thing done, but without sending you into a massive kind of overwhelm panic mode.

And I wouldn't suggest using that one all the time because it can end up making you feel frazzled, which is the exact opposite of what we're aiming for here. But it can be just a useful thing to keep in mind.

If you're finding yourself procrastinating, what can you do to unleash that panic monster, but in a way that feels good.

Another thing to think about, maybe a different way of thinking about this panic monster idea. Quite often, if I'm running a masterclass or a workshop or something like that, I'll talk about the difference between a marathoner, a sprinter, and a procrastinator. And what I sometimes see happening is that people who work best when they're in sprint mode confuse themselves with procrastinators.

They think that they're procrastinating because they're leaving things to the last minute, when actually for them, leaving things to the last minute or turning it into a sprint where there's a deadline involved actually is how they work best. So what if you could think about it that way? Does that help?

If you can think that actually you're not procrastinating, you're just creating the conditions where you work best, and for you, that involves a little bit of pressure.

Not the amount of pressure that's going to send you into an absolute tailspin, but just enough to help you feel that kind of spark and that fire to get the thing done.

I know, you know, there is no quick, easy fix to procrastination, but if you can get curious and figure out what's going on, maybe make some practical changes in your environment, maybe think about deadlines and how you can unleash that panic monster in a way that's not going to send you absolutely into a spin. But it all stems from getting curious, right? And maybe having a play with some of the ideas I've shared with you today.

So whether it's taking that step back to take notice of what's going on in your head when you're procrastinating, what's really going on under the surface, whether it's about eliminating your procrastination tools of choice just so that you don't have the option of procrastinating, or whether it's about introducing just the right amount of pressure to keep you moving forward, I hope there's something here that helps for you to play with, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Thank you for listening to Unfrazzle.

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