This week, I led a workshop for therapists who have clients in career transition. It had been on the books for months. And though I’d drawn an outline of the workshop a while ago, it took me until the night before to start to map the whole thing out. I was cramming like crazy on the morning of. I barely had time to finish. And the really peculiar part is that I’d just written a blog post on procrastination for my Coaching website. I became my own case study. What kinds of things do you put off?
Chart by Matt Shirley
Mopping the kitchen floor and writing my annual merit pay document. The former really doesn’t take all that long, but for some reason I find it irritating. Maybe I should reframe my thinking and do it mindfully.
You’re on to something. One good procrastination tip for doing something that’s irritating is to add an element that makes it more interesting or challenging.
November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and every November I swear I’m going to do it. And every November I write something on November 1st, then spend the rest of the month scheming how I can catch up on the days I’ve missed.
So what stands in the way of you writing something tomorrow?
Everything I don’t want to do: usually b/c I have strong dislike of it I’m focused on or I don’t know how to do it (yet).
My sense is if you don’t know how to do it yet it’s not procrastination.