"Procrastination is like a credit card:
It's a lot of fun until you get the bill."
~ Christopher Parker ~
As I got back in the saddle after about 7 weeks absence from my business, I looked at the lengthy to do list. Things I’d scheduled last year, were now popping up as reminders. I felt a little sick to my stomach when I noticed how
many of them were saying ‘8 weeks overdue’. There were a few that were truly not urgent. that’s why I kept snoozing them, and moving them along to yet another date in the future.
Yet… they were important.
If I did not deal with them, they could create a big problem in future. And I don’t do well with problems
with added time pressure.
So I finally got sick of it enough to schedule 3 of those things in my new Productivity Planner from Intelligent Change. This is a physical planner I heard about from my business coach Caroline Leon, and it arrived just this week!
In this Planner, the creators of it made something super easy for me to grasp:
“Remember: Your most important task of the day is usually the most uncomfortable and susceptible to the dreaded state of
procrastination.”
“RIGHT”, I thought… that’s what I’ll do first thing.
I did not want to see those reminders in my calendar even one more day, because they gave me an ‘ugh’ in my stomach every time I saw them. I put as first on my list that one thing I’d been dreading doing.
And then another 2. I estimated the 1st task would take me 60 minutes, the 2nd also 60, and the 3rd 30 minutes.
Big surprise
Well, guess what?
Once I got going, the first took only 30 minutes (half of my
estimate). And no 2 and 3 both took me 15 minutes each. In total, I spent only 1 hour, with relative ease, on three tasks that I thought would cost me 2.5 hours of effort and sweat!
It was an enormous relief to tick them off. Oh my goodness, what a lovely feeling to not see them on my ‘snoozed Reminders’ on my Outlook Calendar anymore!
And of course, “Why did it take me so long to tackle them if it only took 60 minutes?”
Process Pain
One of the reasons was: I’d blown it out of proportion in my mind. I had all sorts of projections about how much effort it was going to take, how I would
battle to find the relevant info. In other words – how painful the process would be.
I wrote an article years ago about the types of fear that lets us procrastinate. One of them is Process Pain. We fear the process itself will be painful, so we don’t start.
And often, it’s not even true when we dive in. Such is the power of our mind! It tells us stuff, and we believe it. It’s like False News and yet, we fall for it – hook, line and sinker.
Is this happening for you?
After this experience, the thought occurred to me that perhaps this is stopping you from tackling that important (and not urgent) thing that could improve your experience of life, too.
So I wanted to offer
something if you need to get over a hump to gain freedom, like I did.
Some examples might be:
* A situation or event that still bothers you when you think about it, and you deal with it by just ‘pressing the snooze button’.
* Someone you’re still angry with, but you keep suppressing it. It “should” be over, but it’s still alive in your thoughts and body. And you keep just putting it back somewhere deep inside.
* A relationship you want to heal, but it seems too big or unsafe to approach.
* Someone or something you haven’t grieved properly. But facing it just seems far too painful.
* You might want to understand the messages your body has for you in a health issue, but you don’t know where to begin. It seems too big to tackle by yourself.
**
If any of these (or something similar) is true for you, and you keep postponing or suppressing it, the offer below might be right for you. I warmly invite you to take a look at this limited-time offer.
I’m curious and would love to hear from
you.
Where were your challenges and bright spots over the festive season?
Or - just reply to say hello. I do love hearing from you!
