5 Procrastination Busters
Here are five strategies to help you get over procrastination and get your butt in gear. And I definitely have employed all of these strategies for myself, not only in my business, but just in my regular everyday life.
We're all prone to procrastination at one point or another right? It happens. Sometimes you just don't want to do it. You're feeling lazy. You'd rather sit on the couch and binge on Netflix, whatever it is. Maybe you're just tired after taking care of your kids all day. It happens, right? But having strategies that you can really lean on to help you get over that hump of just getting started. And allowing and helping you to just get some momentum going are really the key for a lot of people when it comes to figuring out okay, how can I get myself going, how can I get myself moving to get the things done that I need? For my business and also just for my life, right?
The first procrastination buster that I want to hit on is counting down to five. So this is something that can be really helpful if you're just struggling to just like get the momentum going, just getting started. You're just going to count yourself down from five or ten, whatever you prefer. Not you know 60 Because that's just going to be its own procrastination strategy there but count yourself down from 5...4...3...2...1 and then after you get to one, you tell yourself you are going to get started you're just going to do it and this switch is going to be flipped. And you're just going to get started after you count to five. Sometimes that vocalization of getting started can really help people to get a move on.
The second procrastination buster is a pumpup song. Have you ever imagined what if my life had a soundtrack? What if I had music to go along to what was happening to me? You know, whenever I'm doing something or whenever something is happening to me. What if there was a soundtrack to that? Your pumpup song can be exactly that. It's the soundtrack to you getting going and getting moving, to you having momentum. So pick whatever song makes you feel fun, or lifts that weight of getting started any song that helps you to make that thing that you're starting to do fun and gives you energy. That might be like some deep EDM or house music for some people. That might be a throwback song like from when you were in college or high school. Whatever that song is. And it can even be a playlist of a few songs. But basically, hearing that song is just gonna give you that hit of motivation. It becomes an external motivator to tell yourself ok, now it's time to actually do stuff right so usually I find that the pump up song, if it's kind of a quick beat that really helps to get you moving and get you going. And you can keep listening to it or not while you do the thing but that's going to help you be your indicator of this is the soundtrack and when I hear this song that means something's about to happen. I'm getting moving on something.
The third procrastination buster, is to set a timer for five or 10 minutes and tell yourself this is all I have to do. A lot of people use this when you're trying to go to the gym and work out. I'm going to go to the gym and when I get there, all I have to do is work out for 10 minutes and I can leave after that. That's fine. I've done what I need to do. The thought process behind that is typically once you get started, it's a lot easier, right? When you're trying to find that motivation to get started. You're kind of climbing up this hill. And once you kind of get started you're on that hill and it's much easier, you kind of feel like you're going downhill to continue doing that thing. So just set that timer and say okay, I'm going to get started, but I only have to do it for five minutes. After that, sometimes you might just stop after that five minutes, and that's okay. Because you've told yourself that's all I had to do. But that does get you over that hump of actually getting started. And a lot of times once we've gotten started it's a lot easier to just say oh well okay, I can just do five more minutes or I can just do 10 more minutes and you can tell yourself that it feels easier now that you've gotten started. And then also just makes that thing feel less big and less scary. A lot of times we say oh I just need to find an hour and and sit down and bust that thing out. But that hour never seems to arrive, you can never seem to find the time to sit down and focus on whatever it is that you need to do. So this strategy is great for just getting started on the thing and making real progress.
The fourth procrastination buster technique is removing barriers to entry. If you want to go to the gym in the morning then sleeping in your gym clothes or having your gym clothes you know right there in front of right next to you as soon as you wake up, making it easier for you to do that thing. This might look like if you're sitting down to create content having a content plan ahead of time, having your ring light setup, having your camera charged, having your notes open so that when you come to sit down to start doing that thing, all those things are ready for you, you're removing barriers to entry, you're making it easier, you're making that hill a little less steep to get started. If you have found yourself procrastinating around something, ask yourself, are there any barriers to entry that I can remove to make this a little bit easier for me?
The fifth and last procrastination buster strategy is checking off easy wins and this is also called the snowball effect. We hear about the snowball effect when you're trying to pay off debt. You pay off the smallest debt first, because that gives you a feeling of accomplishment and it's a lot easier to do that thing or continue to do that when you've already felt a sense of accomplishment. And that gives you some of that intrinsic motivation while also being an external motivator because you can see Oh, I did that thing. I did some version of that thing already. But just seeing that you have already been able to start working through your checklist. It might have been something super easy and super simple like get out of bed, brush my teeth. Something small like that if you're having a rough day. But you've still done it. That might be just answering that email, but that can start your snowball. I use the snowball effect a lot because I really love that feeling of being productive and checking off my list and just like crushing my day. But be careful not to use getting other things on your list done as a way to procrastinate on something else because that is also something that I have found myself doing in the past. So if I have a bigger thing that I just don't want to do, or I don't feel like doing, I'll just do a lot of little things as a way to make myself feel better, but in reality, I'm still just procrastinating. So that is something to be aware of if you try this strategy. In some situations that snowball effect might actually be a procrastination strategy.
The great thing about these strategies is you can combine them. It's not just one or the other. So you might think about okay, I've been procrastinating on this thing. Are there any barriers to entry that I can remove? Then you're going to either use the countdown method or the pumpup song to get started and then maybe the timer of okay, I only have to do this for 10 minutes, and then I can be done. You can use all of those things. You might find that some of these work better than others for you. And you might even find some work better for you just in certain situations for certain things. There might be a few of these techniques that work better for you in your business versus in your personal life.
I hope you try one or all of these strategies the next time you find yourself struggling to get started. I have used all of these in my life and in my business. Let me know what you think and if you have a favorite or if any of these in particular work for you.
