Procrastination can sneak in and steal many things from us. Here’s how I got rid of it in my life. I followed the sound advise of many people to eliminate busy work and fill my day with more impactful tasks. From there, I followed what James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, suggests to stop procrastination. I talk about what that looks like in this short video.
If you wish to increase productivity and beat procrastination, there is a simple solution. It’s all about eliminating the ‘starting’ factor of a task by changing where the ‘starting’ factor falls in the sequence of the task. Essentially, you’re setting yourself up on advance so you remove any obstacles to getting your next task done.
Our minds are so cool. Our minds are with us on our journey and will do what we ask them to do. To overcome procrastination is all about guiding your mind to perform important tasks in a manner you create. I’ll share what that manner might look like for you in this video.
I’d love to hear from you on this. What is your secret sauce to stop procrastinating? Did this video resonate with you? Why or why not?
Video referenced in podcast: https://youtu.be/5YNmNd2ncw0
0:00 Introduction to this episode
0:56 Task types
2:39 Why we need to stop this one thing
4:44 What is habit stacking?
5:59 The trick to planning your day
7:40 Setting yourself up in advance
9:33 How to remove obstacles that make it difficult to get started on something new
11:34 How does this resonate?
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Hey, thank you for joining me for this episode of Curves Welcome podcast. My name is Suzie Carr and Curves Welcome podcast is the place to face and embrace life's curves. All of them. The beautiful ones, the hard ones, the life lesson ones. And in this episode, what I want to talk about is something that has to do with procrastination. I know I am a guilty party when it comes to being a procrastinator sometimes. And I am always learning new ways to beat it, because it always seems to creep up in different ways in my life. Now I'm a person who gets a lot accomplished. And I do a lot of things. I have a lot of tasks. But I've learned over the years through great mentors, great friends, great significant other, that being busy isn't necessarily being productive. So in this episode, when we're talking about procrastination, and I reference things like tasks that are on your list, I'm not talking about busy work. I'm talking about those things that matter. Those activities that help you grow and help you move forward, progress, and just develop into the best version of you. So these tasks are the kind that are making your heart radiate and lif you to higher levels. So keep that in mind when I'm talking about task building and things like that in this episode. Procrastination. So one of the things that is really harmful about procrastination is that it can steal your joy. It can take the joy right out of your life. Because if you're anything like me, when I procrastinate, I feel all sorts of low energy vibes. They're not productive. They don't help me be a better person. That is for sure. I feel guilty, I feel shameful. I feel all these different, really low emotions that do not serve me in any capacity or anybody in my life. So procrastinating can really steal that joy. Another thing that procrastination can do is it can deplete your wins. When you accomplish things that are in alignment with your heart, and with your purpose and with your passions, things that make you joyful and happy in life and things that make you feel like your life has greater meaning, when you don't have those activities in your life because you're procrastinating on them, you are depleting your wins. So we got to stop that. And I'm included in this because I tend to do this. So in this podcast, by helping to share this information I learned, I'm also relearning it and relearning it and relearning it. And I think that we are always learning, relearning, learning, again, which is a very healthy approach to life. So another thing that procrastination does is it really burns down our chances of accomplishing great things. When you're not doing purposeful, meaningful things, then you're really destroying your chances of ever doing that. Why do we do that to ourselves? It's self sabotage, really. So that's another thing. And another thing is, you know, procrastination, it's okay to chill out. I think wiggle room is great. When it is purposeful. Chilling out is a really great activity from time to time, I really think everybody needs that downtime. It's part of the balance of work life. But there's such a thing as freezing yourself out completely to have the chances to become better at something. So just be mindful of how much wiggle room you're actually giving yourself. Too much because of procrastination is something that hopefully, after you listen to this episode, you'll have a few tips to help you not do that. And the last thing I want to say about procrastination before we actually get into the secret sauce of how to beat that is remember that if you do not plant something, you're not going to harvest it. So the more you procrastinate about planting those important things in your life, well, the less chance you're going to have of actually being able to harvest those and implement those in your life. So why don't we do this again, self sabotage. Why? Let's figure out how to get through this. Last time that I published an episode of Curves Welcome. I talked about habit stacking. And I got that ideas from Atomic Habits by James Clear, and I really love this book. So I'm speaking about it again this time because there are a lot of great nuggets of information in that and if you haven't read it I highly recommend reading it. It's a quick, it's a quick read. I read it in two weeks, and I read about 30 minutes a day. So, you know, do the math. But I think that it's an easy, digestible read. And it's just something that I think will serve you well. And you'll get a lot of these nice tidbits from his information. So the thing that he talks about is setting yourself up for that moment that you're going to do an activity. And that moment to set something up before you're going to embark on an activity is not right when you're ready to embark on that activity. So what does that actually mean? Before you leave the scene of a task that you are doing, set yourself up for when you return from a break from that wiggle room, or whatnot, set yourself up for the next thing that you want to accomplish. And this is why planning your day is really important. Because if you don't plan your day, then the day plans you. And doesn't always work out to your advantage. So plan your day, come up with the prioritized items that are important to you, things that matter, things that nourish your soul and will bring you to your greater purpose, all of that stuff. And this can start believe it or not, the first thing you do in the morning, when you wake up, and you get out of bed, is to make that bed and make the bed. I heard this in a video many years ago. I am blanking on who it was. But I will find it and I will link to it in this in this video description. And he recommends making your bed first thing in the morning because it is the first thing you're going to accomplish. And it's going to set your day off on the right start of accomplishing things, you will not start off procrastinating. And you get that mindset right away. And also, what that does is it sets you up for when you return at the end of the day to go to sleep, then your bed will already be made and ready for you so that you can just climb in and get a great night's sleep, which is very important. And so that is one of the first things that I do now, I never used to. I used to wait until I had my coffee, did some exercise, maybe took a shower, maybe even did some work, then I'd come back and I should make my bed. Nope, it's the first thing I do. Now the next thing that you do is when so I'm going to give you a few examples of how I do this and how I apply it so that hopefully that will serve as the lesson of how to do this. When I am working on a task in my home office, once I finish that task, and I want to go take a break, wiggle room, whatever, before I leave my office environment, I set myself up for the next task. So say I am producing a video for an author's book trailer. Well, I want to make sure that I have Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Canva, all my client files, ready to go on my desktop. Everything I'm going to need to get to work on this production. So now I leave, I go do my wiggle room, whatever you want to call it, I come back, and everything is ready to go. So it's literally go time, I just jump in my chair here. And I just get started on that task. Because I've taken the difficulty of getting everything set up, launching the programs, all of that stuff is done, out of the way. There is no excuse. I can come in here and I'm like, I have no excuse. Let me just do it now. And that's what happens. The same thing is, you know, I think that nourishing yourself with proper nutrition is very important. So that's a big part of my day. And so what will happen is when I make my morning tea, before I leave my kitchen, I make sure that I take everything out that is non perishable. And that includes cookware and utensils and plates and things like that. I take everything out, put it on the counter, so that when I'm ready to cook my breakfast, everything is ready for me to cook it. I don't have to think about Oh, I gotta take the skillet down. I gotta take the I gotta find the right spoon. I have to do all of that. So now when I go into the kitchen, it's go time if I just get it done, there's no procrastinating. So these are the kinds of things I could list hundreds of these types of activities that you could do. But this is really to me, critical for things that really that you are procrastinating on. And a lot of my subscribers to this podcast are writers. And so I know writing oof, that is a big area that is so easy to procrastinate on because it's very, it takes a lot of creative energy to write a book to write a blog to, whatever you're writing, it's really takes a lot of energy. And so you want to remove all the obstacles that make it difficult to get started on something as much as you can. So here's an example, if you are a person who is creative, like and you're doing some kind of creative writing, before you leave your office, your space, wherever you write, make sure that you set yourself up on your laptop, your desktop, whatever you're using to write. Have a page ready to go. But don't leave a blank. So before you leave, to go on your break, write a sentence, write a word, write a paragraph, write something, maybe it's even a prompt, maybe it's an image, put something on that page, so you are not returning to a blank page that will help you so much to fill up that page, when you return. That obstacle to like, sit down and start writing is gone. You've removed it, you're not starting to write anything, you've already started it before you left the scene. Now you're just continuing it. And I don't know, it just does something to your psyche. It's amazing how that mindset shifts when you take the start something out of it. You've already started out by setting yourself up. Let me know how this resonates with you. And if you participate in this kind of activity to get rid of procrastination issues, I'm really curious to hear how it works for you. Because I have to say, since I've been implementing this it has helped me dramatically. I had such a hard time with writer's block this past year, oh my gosh, unbelievable. And just even getting started on certain things with my work, I would feel clouded and just like, blocked and this by doing this. I haven't felt that way. I've been implementing this change for about a month now. And I feel so good. Like I have really accomplished a lot. And I don't feel any drag on my energy. It feels like my energy is even higher. And I feel like I can accomplish a lot more but I know I'm not going to do that because I have been advised and counseled to just don't add busy work to my day. Make sure everything is meaningful. And I would say the same thing to you, I urge the same thing to make sure that the activities you are doing are not just busy work, that you are working towards something greater that serves the world and serves your life and those you love. Thank you for listening. Until next time, this is Suzie Carr.