36. How to Stop Procrastinating: Tips that Actually Work

Episode 36

Spoiler alert! There is no magic pill to stop procrastinating. There's no secret mantra, no miracle will-power solution. It’s just you and the action you choose to take (or not).

In this episode of the Learn and Work Smarter podcast, I share some key insights into WHY we procrastinate, so that we can use the correct anti-procrastination strategies to get started. Because did you know that using the wrong strategies can actually cause you to procrastinate more?!

These tips are practical, tactical and exactly for you. Listen now: How to stop procrastinating: Tips that actually work.

🎙️Other Episodes + Resources Mentioned

• Episode 35 → What is Executive Function Coaching and Is It for You?

• Episode 28 → Tips for Organizing Papers

• Episode 14 → How to Use the Pomodoro Technique

• Episode 08 → Motivation vs. Discipline: Which One Matters More?

• 6-Part Anti-Procrastination Series

✏️ FREE DOWNLOADS:

→ Daily Timeblock Planner (pdf)

→ 📰 SIGN UP FOR MY AWESOME NEWSLETTER

• Get the transcription

  The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them. :)

  
  36 How to Stop Procrastinating: Tips that Actually Work

  ===

  [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to episode 36 of the learn and work smarter podcast. If you are listening to this, then obviously you are interested in learning and working smarter. And that probably means that you have some experience with procrastination. You are in luck because that is the topic of today's episode. 

  We are going to talk about procrastination so that's, you know, what causes it, including what I argue is almost single-handedly behind every single instance of procrastination. 

  And then of course, we're going to talk about how to beat it. I'm going to encourage you to listen to- after this one- to episode number eight, which is called motivation versus discipline, which one matters more? 

  Episode eight would be a great companion episode to what we're talking about here. 

  That link will be in the show notes, but you know that at this point that you can find every single link that I talk about during a podcast at learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/ the number. So in this case, it would be slash 36. 

  So in the spirit of not [00:01:00] procrastinating, I am going to wrap up this intro and we are going to get started. 

  
  A simple Google search for the word procrastination yields millions of results. Now some common expansions for that search term is procrastination tips for students, procrastination tips for work, procrastination tips for ADHD and lucky for you, we are going to cover all of that today. Now the reality is that we all procrastinate. 

  Yes. Even me, I joke about that because I'm an executive function expert. And if you didn't listen to last week's episode, episode 35, [00:02:00] and you're unfamiliar with the term executive functions, go back and listen to that. But executive functions are the constellation of cognitive skills that allow us to operate independently time management, task management, task initiation. 

  All of these are executive functions. And all of these, you guessed it are super related to procrastination. 

  So if you have ADHD or you know that you have executive function deficits, then you definitely have a close relationship with procrastination. But even I, the executive function expert procrastinate. I know when I'm doing it and I'm fully aware of why, but that doesn't stop me. 

  Now my objective with this episode is not to convince you that is worthwhile or even possible to ever get to the point where you're never going to procrastinate it again. All right. That is absolutely bananas. And that is not in the spirit of what I teach here. Rather, my goal is to teach you how to assess for yourself why you're procrastinating so that you know what strategies to [00:03:00] use to beat your procrastination in any given scenario. 

  
  Now, I know this is hard to believe, but there are other experts on procrastination besides me. I know, I know, who would have thought! Now, one in particular is a gentleman named Tim Pychyl. 

  He was a professor at Carleton university and he has done extensive research into what he identifies is six primary causes of procrastination. 

  I have written a lot about these six causes as well as Tim Pychyl in my anti procrastination series on schoolhabits.com. Yes. I'm going to leave that linked below as well. And I'm also going to repeat them here because they're relevant to today's episode. 

  Okay. According to research and Tim Pychyl, there are six primary reasons that we procrastinate. Um, because a task is boring because it's frustrating because it's difficult. Because it's unstructured or ambiguous. Because it's lacking personal meaning. Or because it lacks [00:04:00] intrinsic reward. All right. 

  
  Okay. So how do we use this information? Well, We can use this list to dig into. And evaluate the reason why we are avoiding any particular task. In any particular moment. All right. So let's give you an example. I'm gonna give a lot of examples in today's episode. So let's say that you have a giant stack of papers on your desk. 

  
  Maybe it's been months or even years now, and you know that you need to get your hands dirty and tackle that pile, but you've been procrastinating and cannot seem to get started. According to Tim, the reason you're procrastinating on organizing that giant paper pile is either because you view it as boring, frustrating, difficult unstructured, or irrelevant or, rewardless. 

  
  Right, and, and this could in fact be true. I can't easily make the case that tackling a giant pile of paper is exciting or easy or rewarding. 

  
  Can you. So the idea though, is that once you determine the specific reason you're procrastinating in a particular [00:05:00] instance, you can employ specific strategies to counter that specific reason. 

  So let's say that organizing that giant paper pile is primarily boring to you, and that's why you've been procrastinating on it. So the strategy would therefore be to add some elements to that task, to make it more interesting or exciting. 

  That could mean maybe doing it with a friend, bringing the paper pile to like your living room floor and sorting it while you're watching a movie, maybe putting on music. Adding anything that you would personally think is exciting would technically increase your chance of doing that task. 

  Let's say that you view that task as difficult. Okay. Then you can use anti procrastination strategies to reduce the difficulty of that task that could look like breaking the large pile into smile, smaller piles, tackling one chunk at a time. It might be asking yourself to only work on the task for like 10 minutes and then you're allowed to quit. All right. 

  That might mean you go through the pile, just looking for trash and papers that you can throw away and making [00:06:00] no other decisions about the remaining papers until a later point. So like easy wins. See, those would be strategies to reduce the difficulty, you know, obviously as well as some recruiting some help- that's always a strategy. 

  Let's look at another example. Let's say that you are a student procrastinating on an essay. After a little bit of thinking about it, you determined that the reason you're procrastinating is that you think the essay's irrelevant. Let's say that it's an essay on a book you read for school and you didn't enjoy the book and it's not related to the future plans you have for yourself. 

  
  Well, then yeah. With that mindset, it's going to be really, really hard to get started on your essay. So an anti-procrastination strategy you would use would be anything that adds relevance. This is where my tough love mom voice comes out and tells you to do it anyway. Put your feelings. Aside. And do it anyway. 

  All right, but I will take a softer perspective here too. 

  And that could mean maybe trying to find a way to connect that book or that essay to the future thing you [00:07:00] do envision yourself doing. Maybe you're interested in starting a business one day. So you don't care about the book you're reading per se, like about ancient Greece. 

  Fair enough, but you know, what is relevant? The ability to do things when you don't want to do them, that is absolutely relevant to creating and maintaining a successful business. 

  I have a successful business and I do things all day long that I don't want to do. Humility to do things when you don't want to do them is the relevant thing that you're getting from that essay writing experience. 

  Now, I'm not saying that that mindset is easy to achieve, but the more things that you do when you don't want to do them, the stronger that mindset and that skill become. All right. 

  
  So there is relevance there. All right. So far, I've given you a few examples of something common that we all procrastinate on: organizing, right? Or maybe even starting an essay or a report. What it looks like to assess ourselves and ask ourselves, what is the reason we're [00:08:00] procrastinating? Is it because it is boring, frustrating, ambiguous. Irrelevant or rewardless. 

  Okay. And then once you figure out the reason you're procrastinating, you use anti-procrastination strategies uh, or what we in the executive function world called task initiation strategies to overcome your particular cause. 

  
  Now this can be a game changer for people. Whether I'm coaching professionals or, you know, students, I hear all the time that the client is procrastinating on something, hates that they're doing that, feels a lot of shame around it, but just settles on "yeah, I know I should do it, but I'm not." And then like, that's that, that's the end of their story. It's like they mentally hit a brick wall when they acknowledged that their prac procrastinating. And it's wonderful to acknowledge that that's happening, but there is an entire other road on the other side of that brick wall. 

  And you have to get past the acknowledgment that you're procrastinating and go one step further to figuring out why the heck you're doing it in that particular [00:09:00] case. And then be intentional about what strategies you're going to use to start moving. 

  Because listen to this: using the wrong strategy, which happens if you don't start by first, figuring out the reason you're procrastinating, using the wrong strategy can actually lead to more procrastination. I see this all the time. Let me give you an example. 

  So let's say that you're actually gonna, you know, try to finally tackle that giant pile of papers that we've been talking about. And you think that bringing the pile of papers to your living room floor and organizing the papers while watching a movie is going to make the task more exciting. Okay. It's going to make it less boring. 

  Now that is a great strategy only if the reason that you were procrastinating in the first place is because that task was boring to you. 

  But let's say the real reason for your procrastination isn't that, you know, it was boring. It's actually that you don't have any organization system. And so going through the piles would eventually lead to more frustration because you have [00:10:00] nowhere to put those papers. 

  Well, then what the heck is putting on a movie going to do? Right? Putting on the most exciting movie in the world is not suddenly going to make a filing cabinet with properly labeled like folders materialize out of nowhere. So in this case, perhaps the reason you are avoiding the task is because the task is unstructured and it's ambiguous. 

  You have no idea what to do with these papers once you go through them. See what I'm saying, you would need to use procrastination or task initiation, task initiation strategies designed to add structure and clarity. 

  That would probably look like creating some kind of organization, system or destination for the papers before you even jump into the pile. Speaking of clarity. 

  If for whatever reason you have zoned out or become distracted at this point so far in my voice is fading away. I want you to zone back in and give me your attention here. 

  I am fully a [00:11:00] proponent of Tim Pychyl's six causes of procrastination. As I said, I talk about them all the time in my YouTube videos and in my blog posts and in my six part anti procrastination series I talked about- yeah, I have entire tutorials where I teach each of these six reasons and strategies that tackle each of the six reasons. 

  Okay. That's in the show notes, but I also want to extend the discussion a little bit about the role of clarity in procrastination. We cannot underestimate the power that lack of clarity has on our task initiation. In other words, if we are the slightest bit unclear in any way about what we're doing our motivation to do that thing

  just tanks. 

  And our creative reasons for avoiding that thing skyrocket, skyrocket. I have never seen somebody so creative as a client who's telling me all the reasons why they haven't done the thing yet. Like "Katie, I was going to do it, but like bla bla, bla, the cat did this. I was out of [00:12:00] cereal. I, it was raining!" Like literally I've heard so many really funny, creative reasons. 

  And I get it. All right. I do, because I am not standing on a soapbox here. But my argument is that when you find yourself avoiding something that you know you should be doing and it is relevant, perhaps, maybe it's a requirement like an assignment or something that's part of your job description, like, there is a consequence if you don't do it, then I argue that the real culprit is lack of clarity. 

  Because if you knew exactly what to do and how to do it, and all the other factors were accounted for, like it was re relevant and in required in all of that, then you would do it. I'm going to repeat that if you knew exactly what to do and how to do it, you would do it. 

  So let's get back to our paper pile example and our student essay example, and let's look at it through the lens of clarity. I sort of already touched on this a little bit, but let's say that you're facing this giant pile of papers, and you're removing the boring elements by [00:13:00] putting on music and you're removing the frustrating elements maybe by clearing off the space that you're going to do this so you're not like annoyed by other things around you. 

  And, you know the task is relevant because you have important bills or kids' school things or tax information in there, okay, that you have to get a handle on. 

  So in other words, there's some other reason why you've been avoiding the papers. Enter our friend clarity. Your strategy here would be to look at the task and ask yourself what's not clear. What do I not know? What am I missing? Where is the ambiguity. 

  Now, let me give you some potential ideas that have actually come up in client sessions before when talking about papers. We talk about papers a lot. I've mentioned already maybe you lack clarity about where the papers are going to end up. Maybe you don't have a filing system yet for these, uh, papers to go. Well then solve for that and create a system. Maybe you don't have clarity about how long you should keep your [00:14:00] financial records and so therefore you haven't made any decisions about those papers. Then get clarity around that. 

  Google it. Ask an accountant. Just do what I do. Ask a friend. Maybe you don't have clarity about whether you should keep those adorable school papers your kids keep bringing home that are all mixed up in the pile. Well, then get clarity over your plan for these kinds of keep sakes. Are you going to use a binder? 

  Are you going to use a shoe box? Are you going to let your kids decide what to keep? Go to Pinterest. Go to Google. Right? Get some ideas and solve for that. 

  All right. And then you move forward. Is that making sense? 

  Let's talk about the English paper or the college essay, right that you've been avoiding. 

  I see this all of the time, but the biggest source of non clarity usually comes from students saying, like, I don't know what to write. Okay. So I would advise a student to solve for that. Do you even know what the question is? Do you understand it? [00:15:00] Or not. Do you know what the requirements are? Did you not actually read the book? So obviously there's a massive bucket of ambiguity there. 

  Do you have an idea for what to write, but you don't like know, if you have enough to say about that to sort of fill up the six page requirement, right. Well then find clarity by taking that idea and creating a loose outline and seeing how far you can stretch it. 

  You would solve for that lack of clarity and your procrastination goes down. 

  Let me give you a personal example that I have experienced in my business. You may have heard me talk about this on the podcast. I have an online course called SchoolHabits University that teaches executive functions and study skills to students. And I also have a version of that course called SchoolHabits University for education, which is a full curriculum that I licensed to schools so their students can access the course through their institution. 

  [00:16:00] First came my idea for SchoolHabits University, and then later came idea for SchoolHabits University for Education. And my delay in marketing and promoting SchoolHabits University for education, even though I had it fully created, was due to lack of clarity. Let me explain. The entire curriculum was created. 

  All 32 video lessons were created all of the workbooks and templates and materials and the course platform and everything was set up and designed perfectly. But I didn't tell anybody about it. Where I lacked clarity was on my pricing model. I didn't want to market something that I didn't have a price for yet. So I sat on this version of the product for months, procrastinating because, you know, I actually lacked clarity. Now the good thing is that I have the skills and I follow my own advice. 

  And one day I said, what the actual hack, like what are you doing, Katie? What is the roadblock, Kathryn? I could hear my mom's voice. [00:17:00] And I realized that I lacked clarity around the licensing models that I was going to offer for SchoolHabits University. And that is what blocked me from creating the pricing guide. 

  Was I going to offer student licenses? Was it going to be a single classroom license like per teacher? Was it going to be a school wide license? So my lack of clarity around my licensing models prevented me from coming up with pricing which prevented me from sharing this awesome thing with the world. All right. 

  So what did I do? I got over myself. I figured out my licensing models. And the rest is history. 

  If you want a less businessy example, let's talk about the pile of clothes that lived in my hallway for over two months. One day I was feeling spicy and I told my two children who are 12 and 13 to go through their clothes and take out the things that like didn't fit anymore. They are growing like weeds. 

  And I told them to just put those clothes and put them in the hallway and that I would take care of it. [00:18:00] But did I take care of it? I did not. Nope. And that's because two months later, when the pile finally begged to be acknowledged, I realized I wasn't sure if I was going to donate the clothes to Goodwill or offer them to a friend. With kids younger than mine. Saying this out loud right now makes me feel a little silly because that is a 30 second decision I could've made months ago. But that teeny tiny bit of lack of clarity, like, what am I going to do with the clothes? 

  Prevented me from doing anything with the pile at all. 

  I share this to emphasize that any amount of lack of clarity in any capacity whatsoever can lead to procrastination and paralysis. 

  And that is why as much as I want you to follow Tim Pychyl's research and use my resources that I created around that research, I want you to pay close attention to the concept of clarity and give it the respect it deserves. 

  Now, I also do want to wrap [00:19:00] up this episode with a few quick tips that can help you initiate tasks or avoid procrastination. I have some tips that are generally helpful in most cases. If you have ADHD, these are strategies I want you to keep in your back pocket because you're going to need them pretty regularly. 

  That just comes with the territory of being neurodiverse. Now remember, I made a big stink at the top of this episode about first determining the cause of your procrastination and then matching your strategies to that particular cause. That is still the very important advice. And I want you to follow that advice. 

  I want you to do it, but in addition to that, The following procrastination strategies might anti procrastination strategies might just be the cherry on top to help you get out of your funk. 

  Tip one. Body doubling. Body doubling is when you recruit some lucky individual to work [00:20:00] alongside you as you complete your task. They're doing their thing, you're doing your thing and you kind of feed off the productive energy of each other. Even though you're both, you know, doing your own things. 

  Tip number two, depending on the task, you might want to consider alternating between two tasks. 

  I don't normally promote multitasking, but this can be helpful. If there is a non cognitively demanding task you need to get done. So like maybe admin or organizing or decluttering or anything other than, you know, reading and writing that uses, you know, cognitive resources. 

  You can work for a little bit on a task and then switch to a preferred task, and then you go back to the non-preferred task and then you go back to your preferred task, back and forth. You can try 25 minutes on one task. A five minute break. 25 minutes on another task. 

  This is a really good timing framework because if you've been around the block with me, okay you know that this is actually called the Pomodoro technique. 

  If you are new to the Pomodoro [00:21:00] technique, check out episode 14. linked in the show notes. 

  All right. Tip three is to tell three different people that you are going to do the task. Let me explain. You have probably heard about the power of accountability and there's a lot of general anti procrastination advice out there that tells you to tell one other person, what you're doing so that you feel accountable to doing it. But I think that's too general

  and I think it's too soft because you know, as well as I do that, you can be selective with who that person is that you tell. And you could tell a person who literally wouldn't care that you did it or not, and therefore you could continue to weasel your way out of the task for ever. 

  So tell three people. Three separate people. Is that weird? I don't know. I don't know. Okay. So, if you're talking about that annoying pile of clothes I had in my hallway for two months, I could have told my kids the pile was going to be gone 

  at the end of the day. I could have messaged, messaged a friend of mine who I know [00:22:00] would text me like a thousand times by the end of the day to see if I did it. Yes. I have friends like that. I love it. And if you are listening, you know who you are. And then I could have told my husband. All right. And then finally, tip four, please 

  don't roll your eyes at this one. I say this from a place of love and compassion, but just do the dang thing already. 

  We do not need to have feelings about everything. Some things are just tasks and we don't need to make them any more than that. 

  If you have clarity on what you're doing, because that's essential, I argue that biting the bullet and bringing your physical body over to the place where that task is going to happen and just doing the darn thing is where the magic is. 

  I'll say it here, as I've told every single one of my clients and students over the past, almost 20 years. We can not want to do something and still do it. They do not have to be related. I told you. [00:23:00] Tough love. Tough love coming over from the other side of the mic over here, but it is because I know you want to learn and work smarter, and that is what it takes sometimes. All right. 

  My friends. I don't want to take up any more of your time. Cause I know that each and every one of you, when you were listening to, this was reminded of a task that you have been avoiding. So your homework is to go do it. And with that, I ask you to please share the show with someone you think might like it, leave a review or a comment if you are so inclined and as always, never stop learning.