How I Stopped Procrastinating Today

Procrastination is everywhere. I don’t think there is a single human on earth not dealing with this. The only difference between you and someone who gets things done is not getting stoped by this foe.

But how can you do this?

I think there are multiple ways, and I am going to show you one today. It’s writing. Just write about it and thus stop the procrastination loop. As I am doing right now writing this email.

Procrastination hit me pretty hard this week, and I got way less done than usual. And we already have Thursday.

When I realized that my problem this week was procrastination, I went through my internal checklist to find the cause. I talked about the underlying reasons in an earlier email.

Fear, Self-doubt, uncertainty, lack of reason.

I use a mix of a technique from mental training and meditation. The technique helps to get a physical response in a yes/no fashion from your subconsciousness. You can learn it in my book Find Your WHY so I am not going into it here right now.

To cut that short, the reason was fear of going through the same frustration as last week. And my writing tasks were leading me right down that road. So, fear tried to prevent that.

But another reason popped up. One, I did not create its own category for (yet)—lack of movement.

Yeah, I was writing and coding in the weeks before and was highly productive. But as it is with these tasks, you sit in a chair. Sometimes all day long. And this was catching up…

Now, the fix is to actually go for a long walk. However, and that is the next interesting thing with our brain. I did not do it.

I had to go out to an appointment in 2 hours anyway, so it would be a waste of time to do it now. So, better combine it.

That’s a trap.

Yep, and I felt for it.

Instead of fixing my problem with a walk, I started to pick up a manga and started reading… Until I was 3 pages in, it hit me.

WTF am I doing here right now.

If I continue reading this, I am going to train my brain to procrastinate even more. I don’t want that!

After thinking a few seconds about that, I closed the manga, put it away, and started writing this email about my current experience.

It’s fascinating to watch your own thoughts and behaviors as they make you do things that are counterproductive to what you want to achieve.

And I can tell you one thing for sure. Had I am not practicing mindfulness and other mental techniques to detect and intervene in these situations, I had lost. I would have devoured the manga in one sitting and later regretted that nothing got done…

your takeaways

Everyone procrastinates. Don’t beat yourself up. Instead, find and fix the reasons and move on. If that does not work, start writing about it. It helps to focus on something else and clears your mind. Plus, it might uncover the obstacles.

I felt so relieves after I wrote and edited this email. It stopped my procrastination.