This week, how to reduce procrastination and why you don’t want to completely remove it. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 353 Hello, and welcome to episode 353 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. We recently asked what’s the biggest thing that ruins your productivity on my YouTube community page. 58% of participants said procrastination. In a way, that doesn’t surprise me. When you see the statistics on how many people spend time planning their days and weeks, I am actually surprised that the number isn’t higher. I’ll explain shortly. Now, procrastination has been around for a very long time. Leonardo Da Vinci only managed to finish a small number of paintings. Of the twenty paintings attributed to him, around five were finished. Leonardo was a serial procrastinator. Yet, it was that procrastination that led to many of his inventions. If he had not procrastinated as much as he did, we would have many more of his paintings but very few of his notebooks full of drawings and diagrams. The good news is, there are a few practices you can do that will reduce procrastination and enable you to be more internal about your days. To get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Carlos. Carlos asks, Hi Carl, what advice do you have for overcoming procrastination? Hi Carlos, thank you for your question. As I alluded to, procrastination and daily and weekly planning are linked. When you are clear about what needs to be accomplished you will procrastinate less. The problem when you have no plan is you waste a lot of time trying to decide what needs to be done. And then, it’s likely you will pick the easiest thing to do in the hope it will get you started. It’s true, you will get started, but you will be doing low value tasks leaving behind the higher value ones. The ones you don’t know what needs to be done or what the first action is because you don’t have a plan. And that leaves you at the end of the day looking at a list of important, high value things you didn’t do. One way to overcome this is to be very clear about what the next action is. In my next YouTube video, coming out on Thursday, I explain why “think about” tasks are not really tasks and will be the ones you will sacrifice the moment your day becomes busy. The reason why these get put off is because it’s not clear what the real action is. For example, if I had a task like “think about what to buy mum for her birthday”, I would procrastinate. It’s too much effort and is not the real task. The real task might be to talk to my brother and sister about what they re getting my mum. Or I could talk to my father and ask him what he thinks she would like. Which task would you most likely do: Think about what to buy mum for her birthday, or, call my brother and ask him what he’s getting mum for her birthday? One is actionable the other is wishy washy. The wishy washy task is the one you will procrastinate on. You will procrastinate because it’s not clear what needs to be done. This is where planning comes in. When you have a plan for the day and are clear about what needs to be done, you will be less likely to procrastinate because your brain is subconsciously planning ahead for you. You’re doing one task and your brain is thinking, subconsciously, about what you will do next and how to complete the task. This prevents your brain from going offline and procrastinating. However, when you don’t have a plan for the day, none of that happens. Instead, you procrastinate. You are always on the lookout for something interesting to do, and anything that does not fit the mood you’re in will be skipped for something more interesting. So, the first practice to develop is to plan your day. This does not take a long time. It can be done in five minutes. And the ideal time for maximum procrastination protection is to do it before you finish the day. There’s something more intentional about starting your day knowing exactly what it is you want to get accomplished. Now, there is a caveat here. If you are an early riser, you can do your planning for the day as part of your morning routine. After all, it’s only five minutes. So how do you effectively plan your day? Step one. Look at your appointments for the day. How much ...
