Overcoming Procrastination

A couple of days ago, I was on a call with my friend, Christine Zilinski, where she shared a fantastic teaching piece on overcoming procrastination and perfectionism.

This wasn’t the first time I heard on the topic and I am quite familiar with it, but when I heard her share how procrastination looked like for her and how it showed up in her life, it became clear she wasn’t alone.

Now, I wouldn’t see myself as a procrastinator. And perhaps you don’t see yourself that way either.

You probably have, like I do, a list of things you would like done and perhaps you don’t need more help in filling your calendar.

But, even though we have a list of things we want to be done by a certain date, and we schedule them in our calendars, they still don’t seem to be advancing with the speed we want.

If this sounds familiar to you, do you know what that is?

Well, you probably guessed it: procrastination.

If you are stuck in any area of your life. If you do not have forward movement in every single area of your life, you have a procrastination issue.

If you are stuck in a relationship?

Procrastination.

If you are stuck financially at any income level?

Procrastination.

If you are stuck with the weight of your body. You lose, you gain, you lose, you gain, and you don’t seem to be able to get the body you want?

Procrastination.

Period. End of story.

How do I know? Well, I lived them all.

I was stuck. And being stuck stinks.??

But, if you’d ask me,?Florin, are you a procrastinator???I wouldn't see myself that way; I wouldn’t consider myself a procrastinator.

In fact, I would argue with you I don’t have time to do all the things I want to do, while in my heart of hearts, I knew there were things I could do, and I probably should do… but I didn’t.

I knew there were things I could do, and if I would do them, they will absolutely move me forward in the direction of my goal, but still didn’t do them.

I would put them in my calendar, I’ll have reminders set up and I will start off to do them. But for some reason, sooner or later, it will lead to the same thing. I would quit altogether.

Now, the thing is I don’t remember consciously making the decision to quit on whatever I was working on or towards. I don’t remember giving up on my goals, but sooner or later it will lead to the same result. I would quit.??

Hearing Christine sharing her experience with procrastination and how she would find herself doing the laundry or cleaning around the house when she knew she was supposed to work on her business, reminded me of some of the things I was doing.

The problem with procrastination is, it is an unconscious choice. It is driven by deep-rooted beliefs in our subconscious mind,??and most times it is not a conscious decision.????

Looking back to those times in my life when I found myself quitting on my goals, I now clearly see why I wouldn’t see those as procrastination. Because, in my mind, I wasn’t quitting. What I was doing is allowing myself to get sidetracked by all kinds of distractions.

Like Christine, I remember finding myself getting up from my desk, going down the stairs, and opening the fridge only to ask myself,?what was I looking for in the fridge???Has that ever happened to you???

Or when I felt not quite inspired to start writing that blog post and said to myself,?let me just take a cup of coffee and I’ll get back to it in two minutes.??

Well, not quite so… While at the coffee machine I noticed the cup holder was a bit dusty and as I wait for the machine to warm up, let me clean that really quick. And as I was doing that, I notice the water tank has some coloring on it. I know it has been there for weeks but I feel I should try to remove it now…

Ten minutes later, with a clean machine, I finally press the button to make my espresso.

Oh, and as I do that, I saw the coffee beans tank was almost empty, so I better go fetch a new bag from the deposit. I get back with the bag, fill the tank but I cannot leave the remaining beans in an open bag, just like that. Ok, so I need to find one of those sealable colored jars so they don’t oxidate… but I wonder where did Florina put those jars?

You get the idea.

Twenty minutes later, I am climbing up the stairs to my desk with a cup of cold espresso that I didn’t even enjoy, and that won’t help me get more creative in my writing.

Exactly when I was ready to restart, I get a notification from LinkedIn.?One of your connexions has visited your profile.??I click on it, and off I go on the open sea of social media for another twenty minutes.

Sounds familiar? I hope it does.???

I want to believe that I am not alone and that it isn’t only happening to me.

So what’s the solution you might ask?

For me, it was two-folded.

1.Planning much more?white space?in my calendar.

If you are anything like me, you probably tend to be optimistic about how many things you can achieve in a day and you tend to plan more things than you can actually do. At least, that’s true for me.

What I found to work best for me is to only plan up to 80% of my time and leave 20% as a buffer for unplanned things I might need to do and for when the planned work takes longer than I estimated. That way, with a 20% margin in my calendar I tend to do the things I plan and avoid all the negative self-judgment that comes with not doing the things I know I should do.

2.?Getting an accountability partner

This is by far one of the best decisions of my life, to get accountability partners. Driven individuals, like me, who would call me out on my promises and will help me stay in the game. Not only did my partners helped me get much more things done, but they helped me stay focused on what’s important to me. Who would want to show up at an accountability meeting and use an excuse for their lack of progress? Certainly not me.

So, the question is what are you allowing to distract you from doing the things you know you should do?

How could you make yourself aware of when that happens and what could you do to limit its influence?

I believe these questions alone are worth a really good one-hour reflection time.

As my friend John Maxwell says,?experience isn’t the best teacher, evaluated experience is.

I'd love to hear what you think about procrastination, share your thoughts in the comments below. ?

Florin