​

Procrastination. It’s the root of all evil for busy people. You’re stressed. You know you have a million things to get through.

So… why does your brain just decide to direct its attention to anything and everything except your work, even when you know its not good for you?

Why do we convince ourselves that we’ll feel like it in an hour, tomorrow, next week, being fully aware that we’re just adding to our own stress?

Today, we’re going to break it down. What is procrastination? Why do we do it? And how do we overcome it?

THE BACKSTORY

My life has been absolute chaos this past month. I’ve started back at uni. I’m now trying to squeeze 5 days of work at my job into 4. I’ve been working on my first 2 projects for Elevise (ahh!), and I’ve re-started this newsletter.

Personally, I’ve been at the gym 5 days a week, prioritising 8 hours of sleep each night, and sticking to my goal of at least one social activity a week.

But despite having a million things to do, I still find myself procrastinating on a daily, even hourly basis.

Sometimes it’s obvious:

• Browsing LinkedIn for ‘industry updates’ at work
• Responding to messages when I should be winding down for bed
• Scrolling Instagram in the car for 5 minutes before going inside

But sometimes, it’s subtle:

• Tidying the container drawer instead of starting work
• Organising desktop folders when I should be doing a client project
• Spending 10 minutes picking the perfect Instagram post template instead of just making the post

These subtle forms can feel productive. But they’re still procrastination, because I’m not doing what I intended to.

So, I started picking myself up on my procrastination.

I made the habit of asking: why am I procrastinating?

There were 3 main themes I found.

1. I was overwhelmed.

I scrolled instead of worked to putting off making a decision. I scrolled to avoid having to think about everything I had to do, and make a plan to work through it. Even if it was just for 2 minutes, scrolling let me delay dealing with the overwhelm.

2. I was bored.

I didn’t like the task that I had to do, or didn’t see it as important. Cleaning the container drawer was more appealing than analysing survey responses.

3. I wanted the easy option.

Every time I hit a point of mental friction in my work, I stopped and sought the dopamine hit from my phone. When I had enough of a mental break (or I felt bad enough), I put the phone down, started work again, and the cycle would repeat.

​

As I said, I was doing this even when I didn’t have the time for it.

Turns out, it’s not just me.

Procrastination is a human condition. According to Piers Steel (author of The Procrastination Equation) 95% of people admit to putting off work.

And I’m almost certain that the other 5% are in denial.

What I’ve now learned is that beating procrastination is all about making positive action easy, and negative action hard.

Here are 5 strategies I’ve been using to do just that.

THE BREAKDOWN

1. Identify why you’re procrastinating

Tim Psychl is a world expert on procrastination. According to his research, there’s 7 triggers that cause us to procrastinate. If a task is:

• Boring
• Frustrating
• Difficult
• Ambiguous
• Unstructured
• Not intrinsically rewarding (i.e., you don’t find the process fun)
• Lacking in personal meaning

We’re more likely to procrastinate to avoid doing them.

By identifying the root cause, you can find the exact solution to overcome your procrastination. How? Simply reverse the trigger.

Boring? Make it interesting.

Frustrating? Set a reward.

Difficult? Make it simpler.

In fact, most of these 7 triggers can be addressed using the other 4 tips we’re about to go through.

​

2. Break your tasks down

If I told you to write a book, how would you go about it?

You could spend your first work session ‘writing the book’. But, my guess is you wouldn’t even know where to start.

Instead, you could spend your first work session creating a project plan.

Identifying the key stages: research, plan, write the body, write the intro, etc.

Identifying the tasks for each stage: read studies on x topic, read interviews with x person, etc.

Mapping out target timelines for each stage, and creating spaces to house your work for each task.

Breaking our tasks and projects down works for three reasons:

• It puts you in control of your work
• It clarifies exactly what action is required
• It gives you a measure of success and progress

All of these reduce the procrastination triggers of frustration, difficulty, ambiguity, lack of structure.

Plus, looking at the micro-actions helps you find ways to make the process intrinsically rewarding and personally meaningful.

Create enough small changes to make your tasks fun and fulfilling, and the project will follow in its footsteps.

​

3. Plan and prepare in advance

Have you ever gone to a job interview knowing you were completely unprepared?

Or gone to the gym without a workout plan?

You probably spent 10 minutes in the car scrolling through interview tips or gym workouts.

Then 20 minutes pumping yourself up in the lobby or on the treadmill.

It job interviews were an appointment you booked, you would’ve avoided locking it in for months

90% of executing the actions we know we want to do comes down to starting. Overcoming the initial hump of resistance.

Once you’ve done your first deadlift, you’ll finish your workout.

Once you’ve written (or read) the first paragraph, you’ll finish the page.

The Zeigarnik effect describes how the human mind hates unfinished tasks. It’s the cause of:

• Binging a 14-hour show in 2 days
• Leaving an email unopened but finding yourself constantly wondering what it says

Failing to complete a task creates underlying cognitive tension, which drives us to come back and resolve it.

Planning in advance makes it easier to start, and therefore easier to induce the Zeigarnik effect.

Reduce the lack of structure by planning your week each Sunday.

Reduce the ambiguity by laying your clothes out the night before.

Make it intrinsically rewarding by setting a timer and committing to do just 10 minutes.

Once you start, you’ll have a biological drive to keep going.

Oh, and you’ll realise the idea of doing something is almost always worse than actually doing it.

​

4. Add in friction

Last week, I accidentally left my phone in the car after my morning workout.

I realised when I got to my desk, and decided to leave it there for an hour to see what happened.

Well, I realised just how bad my unconscious phone habits were.

Twice within the hour, I hit a mental block.

A point where my work got hard and I had to stop and think.

Thinking is hard, scrolling is not, so my natural instinct was to reduce the mental load by reaching for my phone.

The interesting thing was - I didn’t use my phone in that hour because it wasn’t within reach.

The small distance between me and my car was large enough to avoid giving in to the temptation.

It doesn’t require much friction to prevent our bad habits.

All it takes to move closer to the habits, behaviours and identity you want to embody is creating a tiny opportunity to make a conscious choice.

Because when you act based on a choice, rather than a reaction, 9 times out of 10 you’ll choose what’s good for you.

So move the phone out of your room. Move the cookies to the back of the cupboard. Unsubscribe from the e-commerce emails.

Friction is the kryptonite of bad habits.

​

5. Use accountability

This final tip draws on three core human desires:

• Social status (you desire respect from others)
• Belonging (you want to be accepted by others)
• Consistency (you experience mental discomfort when you go back on your word)

Accountability allows you to make your intentions public, putting these three desires at stake.

One method I’ve been using with my work colleagues and absolutely loving are work caves.

Zoom calls with a twist.

Here’s how they work:

• Organise a meeting with friends, colleagues, or internet strangers
• Decide how long you will work for (I typically find 50 or 90 minutes periods to work best)
• Have each person list what their intentions for the session - what will they aim to complete?
• Turn your mics off, keep you cameras on, and start working
• At the end of the session, check in with each other - Did you get your work done? Did you get distracted?

You can see why this would drive you to complete your work instead of procrastinating.

So try it with your friends, work colleagues, or join an online work cave.

Final Thoughts

Remember that procrastination is part of being human.

The aim is not to eliminate it.

The goal is to gain the skillset and toolset to manage it.

• Create awareness of your procrastination (both in the moment and habitual patterns)
• Find a few key methods that work for you
• Employ them to overcome the procrastination
• Repeat every time it happens

And remember:

“In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” — Theodore Roosevelt

​

Here's to another week becoming the best version of you.

Tayla

Looking for more resources?

You'll find all my Notion templates, courses and other free resources here.

Are you a founder, entrepreneur or small business owner looking to elevate your operations?

At Elevise, we support ambitious, visionary founders who are ready to scale, sell, or create more freedom in their businesses.

We specialise in using the power of systems and processes to remove operational bottlenecks and inefficiencies, with a focus on process documentation, optimisation and operations management via. ClickUp.

Our clients are driven, visionary leaders who want to elevate their company's growth and impact, and step out of the daily details.

​Visit our website to explore how we can help you elevate your business's growth and impact, and step out of the daily details.

More ways to connect

​​​​​