Procrastination Can Hide Inside The Work Itself

When we think about procrastination, we always think about what we haven’t done

‘I pissed around, felt paralysed, got nothing done. I must be avoiding work’

I’m not saying I haven’t done or felt this before

But what I’ve always struggled with - is that we know some time sitting, not working and feeling stuck is probably a good thing for thinking

Obviously that feeling of paralysis is never nice

However all you need to do is spin around away from your laptop, put your feet up for 20 minutes and allow your brain to wander

And you’ll either solve the thing you’re struggling with - or at worst, come up with a load of gold for other things you’re working on

To my mind, there’s a much more expensive version of procrastination

Which has always been a bigger problem for me, that I have to guard against constantly

Busyness.

‘How is being busy procrastinating?’

Well first of all - it implies that doing anything is productive for you and your business - which patently is not true.

Some things are bigger priorities than others

I’ve seen a lot of coaches feel flat out because they’re bouncing between check-ins, courses, writing content plans, thinking of ways they could offer a smaller, cheaper thing to bring people in

Instead of the pressing, uncomfortable shit like offering stuff you’ve got, and having the balls to chat to people and get some ‘Not for me, thanks’s

None of the former looks like avoidance, which is what makes it such fucking great avoidance

Recently I had a week where I ticked off 107 tasks between Monday and Friday.

3.1 hours of that was work that would bring money in.

16.4 hours of that was me building stuff.

Now that’s not a problem - if the building will lead to you having more stuff to sell

(Or if you genuinely have free time to build without needing to generate money from it - if that’s you, fucking good on you - what a place to be in with business!)

But I know that I have to keep tabs on weeks like this, to make sure they don’t pile up.

I can easily spend eight hours building, thinking, writing - genuinely working - but still avoiding.

Doing is never hard for me

Doing stuff in public that is seen?

Can fall off the radar if I’m not careful.

Doing can become a hiding place, and it’s a dangerous one as it has evidence of effort.

It’s dangerous because it goes undiagnosed, and because it normally replaces awkward business-generating tasks

Peace of mind is often the other side of a few hard, uncomfy conversations

Business growth is often the other side of a few uncomfy tasks