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If you catch yourself procrastinating yet again on a business task, I get you.
I am currently procrastinating but instead of letting the day go to ‘waste’, I’ve decided to record this podcast episode.
Hi, I’m Shikah, I used to be a counsellor and now I create done-for-you life coaching workshops and workbooks which you can use with your coaching clients.
Today, as you can guess, I’m going to share some strategies which help you to overcome procrastination and be more productive as a business owner.
One sure-fire way to overcome procrastination is to do - what I call - The ‘10 Minute Rule’.
You basically tell yourself that you are going to work on a particular task for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, you are going to check in with yourself and find out if you still want to continue or stop.
There is a very high chance that you will want to continue with this task after 10 minutes. That is because your mind and body are already in ‘work’ mode. Hence, continuing with this task feels easier and more manageable.
And psychologically, once you’ve started something and ‘in the groove’ of it all, you will want to continue because it feels good to be productive and moving towards your goals.
Another way to handle procrastination as a business owner is to go with the flow.
If you have planned to write one chapter of your book today but you feel a mental block about it, it’s alright to change plans quickly.
If you feel the inspiration to record a podcast episode today, instead of writing your book like you planned, do it.
It is better to be productive in one area of your business instead of forcing yourself to stick to your plans when your heart and mind are not in it.
You may not finish writing a chapter today as planned, but at least, you have published a podcast episode. As business owners, it can be very rewarding to work with the flow. When you are working with the flow, your projects get done very fast and you feel very energised.
I like to be practical and suggest that you don’t procrastinate or put off important projects for too long. If you notice that you have been procrastinating for weeks to write a chapter of your book, you may need to do an honest reflection with yourself.
This honest reflection exercise helps tackle procrastination by pinpointing exactly what is causing it.
When we procrastinate, we are usually avoiding something. It can be a negative emotion such as stress, overwhelm or fear.
The first thing we can do is to be honest with yourself and ask why you are procrastinating on a particular task.
As an example, right now, I am supposed to create a new done-for-you vision board masterclass which coaches can conduct with clients. I was planning to write 10 slides today, but I didn’t do it.
As I was reflecting, I know that I procrastinate to avoid feelings of extreme stress. For me, personally, creating done-for-you masterclasses is very stressful. I need to do in depth research, I need to apply my knowledge, I need to write a lot, I need to make sure that the content I create is high quality and I want to give my best. So, the whole process can be very stressful.
For you, you can do the same reflecting exercise to find out why you are avoiding a certain task. Once you find out the reason you are procrastinating something, you can strategise a way to do that task with less stress.
Maybe you can outsource that task to someone else. Maybe you can change your work environment or work in a cafe to make the task less unpleasant.
You can also choose to let go of perfectionism if perfectionism is causing you to procrastinate on something. Being aware of the reasons for our procrastination as a business owner can be a powerful thing.
One habit I’ve been doing to reduce procrastination is to ‘design’ my dream week, every single week.
Every Sunday, I will sit down and type down the things I want to do the following week which will make the week as pleasant and as productive as possible.
I literally designed my dream week in words. You can choose to write or type the activities out. I use Google Docs to ‘design’ my dream week every Sunday.
For work-life balance, I will usually type 5 work-related tasks I want to accomplish the following week and also 3 leisure and fun self care activities I want to do in the week too. Work-life balance is important for us business owners, so let’s remember to plan our fun self care activities every week too.
If you are a coach and you want to launch an overcome procrastination masterclass for your clients, but you are too busy to create a masterclass from scratch, you can get my done-for-you procrastination masterclass.
You will get 80 Canva slides, all ready done for you, an accompanying workbook and also a script so that your masterclass goes smoothly. Thank you for joining me here today. See you in my next episode. Bye!
