How to Stop Procrastinating

stop procrastinating you're not the only one that feels guilty about it either I procrastinated for months about making the very video okay I listened to this researcher and psychologist named fuchsia soroy I think that's how you say she says that the root cause of procrastination is not that we're avoiding a task per se but we're avoiding the emotion that we are associating with that task go ahead and St in that for a minute because I know I did if you don't know this about me by now I am the queen of avoiding emotions okay what's that sadness hurt bury now before it gets loose procrastination may sound fancy but if you take away all the big hair and makeup it boils down to the basic run- the- mail emotional avoidance that we all know and love and when I heard this I hit pause to get myself a minute to step back and assess whether or not I agreed with this and guess what I found that uh it makes 100% sense based on my experiences and you know that's a lot cuz I'm an old lady in fact I had this office full of stuff that needed to be cleaned out for over a month I've been procrastinating this okay Christmas stuff Gemma Toys stuff that was waiting to sell on Facebook Marketplace which by the way is a whole other thing that I love to procrastinate there also there's also stuff that needs to go to the attic which I hate going to the attic because it smells funny up there and it's you know it's like an allergy waiting to happen anyway one of her suggestions to overcome procrastination was to give yourself a time limit because psychologically it's easier to think about well if I have to suffer I'm only going to suffer for 10 minutes and then it'll be over over so that's what I did I said to myself I said self we're going to go in here we're going to do 10 minutes of whatever it is we got to clean out and put away and then we're going to stop and I set a timer and everything okay here's the funny thing do you know what happened after 10 minutes I looked around at all my progress and I was so impressed with myself I was full of accomplishment and confidence and I celebrated that I was almost done because I had the momentum and this sense of motivation to spend another 10 minutes and I said another time for another 10 minutes I said I'm just going to give it one more go by the time 20 minutes had ended it was completed and that's actually evidence of another thing that fuchsia mentioned we're actually really bad at guessing our emotions we usually predict that we're going to feel a lot worse than we will actually feel so tip number one give yourself a time limit for something that you really don't want to do give yourself 10 minutes or five or two whatever it is confession by the time the office was all cleaned up I actually felt kind of dumb for how long it took me to actually do it because I had been putting it off for so long I used so much brain space on avoiding it over and over and I it would constantly come up in my mind as a to-do item and then I would just feel over calmed with Dread I was overwhelmed and I was just ignored another day snooze button last week at work I started to procrastinate something else I was working on a contract that was particularly complex and I suddenly felt overwhelmed and didn't really understand why so I took a quick break and as soon as I took a break I immediately realized what the problem problem was because along with that contract there were a whole bunch of other things that were swirling around in my head for that day things that I needed to do or pick up I had to get some specific groceries for example so I grabbed a notebook and I started dumping out all of these things onto the paper which is giving you an example for number two tip number two make a list allowing all these unfinished things to swirl around it puts a strain on our minds and making a list freeze up that brain space so you kind of dump it out on the paper and out of your head I ended up making three lists that day because I had specific things that I needed to get from the grocery store I had chores that I need to complete around the house for that particular day and then I also had some DIY projects that were swirling around up there let me tell you what there's not a day that passes by without me redecorating in my head okay well what if I don't like making lists okay so you're that guy well there's a similar trick that my husband does he utilizes the same psychology he paid good money for two checks that are out here all the time helping him remember to do stuff and believe me when I say they are constantly reminding him and telling him what to do one is named Siri the other is named Google of course I'm piling on as well because I'm asking him please put the dishes away and blah blah blah so between all these chicks in the house we we don't really don't know who's in charge here because this poor guy he's being told what to do all day long so tip number three tell Siri or Google to remind you chances are you probably have one of them chicks in the house yourself okay what's something that you procrastinate leave it in the comments and let me know I don't mean to brag but I'm a professional at procrastinating going to the doctor anybody else I had to go to the doctor last week so I was very much procrastinating that dreading it and I hate going to the doctor for a lot of reasons I'm not going to share them because my intention here is to help you not to pass on my trauma so moving on anyway the appointment was long and redo but I finally bit the bullet and went after I rescheduled it twice but we're not going to talk about that but when I got home I was feeling terrible because hate going to the doctor and I had two cookies I ate two cookies not one cookie two and since I wasn't feeling well I made some tea I laid down I watched football and I also threw a white flag to my husband and he also brought home dinner because he's amazing number four this is an example pair the task with a cookie or something else that will bring you Joy I guess it doesn't have to be a cookie but maybe it's a so in the tub maybe get your nails done do something that's for yourself out of the ordinary and considered self-care for you that book Atomic habits he calls this habit stacking and after you complete the task that you've been dreading you do something that will bring you positive and joyful emotions those emotions will help you combat the negative ones a mistake that I continually make is assuming that my emotions are wrong your emotions are not wrong they areen necessarily right either but they're just a thing it's a thing they're part of you they're not you but they're part of you needless to say you can't turn them off though instead of bearing them I'm working on accepting them and then making them work to my advantage so tip number five take a moment and uncover the emotion you're avoiding and debunk it cuz sometimes it's just plain wrong one big emotion I avoid all the time is the feeling of inadequacy I used to have this monster report that was doing Thursday and I was a professional at avoiding it putting it off to the very last minute masterful really when I came to the realization of you know avoiding a task is avoiding your emotions this report came to my mind immediately okay because this report was so long and complicated and I remember I had to read my own directions in order to complete it correctly and I hate reading directions reading directions makes me feel inadequate I realize that's ridiculous but I had to think through this okay I was and completely am capable of completing this thinking report any report really I can do it I just didn't want to read the directions because reading directions makes me feel like I don't don't know what I'm doing I know I'm a real piece of work imagine how my husband feels so do you ever feel guilty about the things that you keep putting off we can start to feel really guilty and also shameful and a whole mess of other negative emotions for delaying the task that we know we need to do here's a news flash though feeling guilty actually makes it even worse because you already have negative emotions associated with this task and now you're piling on guilt on top of that which makes it even worse it makes you pressing even more so number six tip six give yourself some Grace Let It Go give yourself a break give yourself a hard time about it ain't helping you it ain't helping anybody else either promise you that all right I got to go but leave a comment and tell me what you've been prating on so I know I'm not alone love you talk t