Stop Procrastinating

During a recent executive coaching conversation, the executive requested we work on how to help him stop procrastinating.

I suggested there’s good reason we all procrastinate. Procrastination takes care of our fear of failure. The longer we leave things, the more excusable failure becomes.

“I didn’t have time” – yeah right!

We invite procrastination by listing an overwhelming number of tasks to do by the end of the day. Upon reflecting on his day’s ‘to do’ list, he concluded there was no way in hell he’d get that all done by the end of the day.

To stop procrastinating, I invited rather than allocating tasks to time, he allocates time to tasks.

INVITATION

Set aside the next 10 minutes to work on one thing. Be ruthless and let nothing distract you. Then allocate the next 10min to the same or another task. See what happens by the end of the day. (It’s how I got to write this post.)

As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, says - "Stop waiting. Stop talking yourself out of it. Stop researching. Go do it."

May you flourish.