How to Overcome Procrastination! EP #345

#JFDI! Take action and tackle tasks head-on.

In this conversation, The Video Mentors explore practical ways to overcome procrastination, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing tasks, setting clear goals, and celebrating small wins.

They share their own experiences and offer actionable tips and tools to help you stay focused and productive at work. 📈🎥✨

TVM: Den Lennie, Alana Tompson, Caleb Maxwell, and Matt Smolen

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Transcript

 Now, before we kick off this week's podcast, those of you with the keen eye will notice that Andy's changed his look somewhat and might I say become a far more attractive version of the person we normally look at in this window. It's definitely an improvement. Welcome to the mentors officially.  Thank you very much.

I didn't know about that though. And he's a very good-looking rooster. So thank you for the welcome guys. They're pretty good-looking looking too. 

Really awesome to have you here. Lana. You are an absolute powerhouse in the industry, supporting women, supporting diversity.  We love you. You are an incredible business owner, incredible human being, and really thrilled to be bringing your version of magic to the video mentors and everybody else who comes across this awesome podcast.

If I do say so myself. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. Very good. So this week we're gonna kick straight off with the notion of how to overcome procrastination. I know this is something that many videographers struggle with.  And it's, I'm seeing it almost on pandemic levels that the inability to make a decision to move forward, I think is possibly related to the quest for perfectionism. 

But as we know in business, you can't wait for things to be perfect before you execute because otherwise you'll never ever get anything off the ground. And my philosophy in business is.  Rapid imperfect action beats trying to perfect something because it's more important to put something out and it not be perfect than to wait because business needs momentum.

So who'd like to kick off this conversation? I'd like to put it off if we can do that. Can we go to the next subject please? Yeah. Yeah. Next podcast  title.  On point. I love it. Cool. I've been waiting to say that. I mean, I saw this on the topic list and I was like, I cannot resist this joke. I will throw out a gag, but I'm happy to volunteer first.

I think procrastination is, I'll put my hand up and say I've, I've absolutely dipped into that. Procrastination well, many a time, and I think that it's really, really easy to kind of just distract yourself. I think it's very easy to kind of get the dopamine hit of procrastination because you know, I often joke that what we do making videos is actually nothing tangible.

Like you use cameras and lights and stuff, but the end product is just a bunch of data in a computer that you don't kind of get that, like that thing made. So oftentimes in that ideational planning stage, it sort of feels like you're doing stuff without actually moving, moving forward a lot of the time.

But one thing I've, I've sort of had as a little note on my computer for, for years now is just this little saying that says being busy is not the same as being productive. And I think it's just that wonderful reminder to be like, yeah, you might be busying yourself with stuff like, I don't know, looking through social media and thinking I'm researching or, you know, doing whatever it is, but it's not actually productive.

It's not moving the needle. It's not. The highest and best use of my time and the most sort of productive use of that to get a sale across the line or a project developed or whatever it is. So I often have that there is a reminder because we're all fallible. We're all human,  but it's that sort of how quickly can you realign with that mission to be more productive and get on with what you really need to do.

Caleb, I feel like you are Mr. Productive.  How do you, how do you do it? Oh, no, I was just thinking about that, that word mission that you used. And I reckon at times I've experienced high levels of procrastination because I've had a lack of a mission. I've, I've had a, a confusion in what it is I'm actually, my tasks are actually contributing to.

And so when there's nothing to anchor. My no goal to anchor my vision towards nothing that I think I'm contributing to. It's really easy to get overwhelmed with the options of all the things you could do, because that's, that's something that I, I, I struggle with. I go,  there's so many things, you know, as business owners, like you could be.

There's no end to how you could procrastinate. There's like an endless list of tasks that all fit within the business owner bucket of responsibilities, but it is what the, the question that I have asked myself and then the method that I use to overcome this problem. Influence or this cause of procrastination is what, what am I actually driving to?

What's my goal? What's my outcome like long term, short, midterm, short term, and then what are the tasks that I need to do to achieve that? It's like, and they're in priority list. Like there's  today I've got you know, in, in the VBA elite group, we do a weekly goals, right?  So at the, the start of the week, I know what my strategic goal is for this week.

And I know what tasks are involved with that, but then there's all those other little tasks. So it's, for me, it's about knowing what my highest priority things are to do, and they're informed by actually having a specific task. Goal that I'm trying to achieve over a whole year and broken, broken down.

But then there's then there's the daily tasks that I know need to get done, but they're not as important. So the separation of those tasks really, really helps me. I go, all right. I know that if I get this A level task done today, it's a big win. And I know I'm probably not going to get all of these B tasks done, but they're, they're what I'm going to tackle after I've done this one. 

What about you, Alana? What do you how do you experience procrastination?  Yeah, so I had a similar thing written down to you, but I will say that as someone who is neurodiverse, I am very, very familiar with our procrastination friend. So I have gotten very good at overcoming it. I think. Well, there's a few suggestions that I would make and one is,  you know, find a way that you can set these, you know, I just saying have the big picture because then you're invested in all the steps that are moving you towards that big picture.

But then find some kind of a program or something where you can list those things out and tick them off and get that green tick, that little dopamine hit for each task that you complete. I think that's really helpful. And also like we all were creatives and we work really well.  So I think you just need to set yourself deadlines for tasks, like it's an edit that's due.

And I think that really helps. And something to kind of follow through with that is to find yourself an accountability buddy. They're amazing. It might be someone that's on a similar journey to you or doing a similar thing. And like we do in the elite with like setting goals on a Monday and then celebrating at the end of the week, do the same thing with someone.

Who, you know, catch up each Monday and say, this is what I'm gonna do. And then on the Friday you have to say, well I didn't do it and this is why, and you've gotta be accountable. So I think that that really helps from a neurodiverse perspective, but also from a business owner perspective.  It's like the concept of big rocks and little rocks, isn't it?

I think that's something you've talked about in the past, Matt. Yeah. Do you wanna talk a bit more to that and what you mean by the little rocks and big rock strategy? Yeah, well, it's, it's, you know, you know, I love an analogy and a metaphor and basically it's like, if you have a  collection of rocks that make up the tasks you need to do for a day, a week, a year, whatever it is, right, that, and you've got a jar, you need to fit them in, which is your day how do you best fill that day with, The most, you know, available space, right?

So if you're filling it with little rocks at the start and then try to cram this big rock in at the end, it's just not going to work. Like you've got this mammoth thing. That's just going to take away too much space and presence. And there's no way it's going to ever fit into that jar, no matter how much you move it around.

Whereas if you go, you know what, this is the biggest, most meaningful thing that I need to account for. Let's put that in first. It'll take a lot more time or space and whatever, but then as you go, you can start adding the little rocks and they'll naturally sort of filter in through the cracks and, and start filling in the little gaps here and there.

So it's just a really good way of, I think, visualizing how to formulate a day and, and, and process it. Everybody's different, you know, like. There's, there's night hours, there's morning people that, you know, where's your sense of of highest productivity and then really maximize that as that like deep work or really focused intentional space to do a really big task. 

I know that, you know, and not to self promo and cross promo on a podcast here, but I have a YouTube channel, which you should all go and subscribe to. But I made a video recently called, why do we never have enough time? And it started genuinely is like an exploration of the psychology of why, You know, time and pressures of time and all of this sort of stuff happens, and then kind of through working through that came to the realization of it's all about being present and in the moment.

And I think that while that was very personal journey, it still sort of applies to business in that, like, you need to be really present with what you're doing and really aware of what's going on, because if you're not. Aware of that, you could waste weeks and weeks and weeks doing stuff being busy, but it's not productive.

And you've just managed to kind of like, kick the ball down the street a little bit and feel like you've achieved something when it's actually not going anywhere. And so really taking the time to to recognize what are the big tasks or the big monumentally.  Business shifting things you can do, I'm really dedicating the time to that all the other little stuff will fall into it.

It's like, it's very easy to get stuck in your emails and stuck in your linkedin DMS and sort of a couple of hours goes by and you've done nothing. Whereas if you go, you know what? I need to refine my, my, I don't know. my offering and my packages that I'm selling and what are the problems that I'm solving, how can I package that and market that and spend, you know, a good couple of hours on that, then all of a sudden all those other conversations are influenced by that and the whole thing kind of moves the needle.

So the big rocks, little rocks is just a really simple way of of illustrating that to kind of get your head around a potentially mammoth, mammoth? Mammoth task. In our office, we have the same thing, but we call it eating the frog. And so we eat our frogs first thing in the morning. And it's the thing that you don't want to do.

You don't want to put that frog in your mouth. But it's the thing that's going to take you forward the most. So we always eat our frogs first up. Yeah. I love that. I love that frog analogy because I've, I've heard that before and it's, it's such a good visual, but it's like, what is the hardest? What's the thing I don't want to do today?

If I get that done, then I'm not going to procrastinate from doing it. So I'll be more productive after it. So we know not to distract each other when someone says, what are you doing? And it's like, I'm eating my frog. Everyone knows what's going on.  I also think too, just back on the accountability buddy thing, like self-awareness is a big accountability buddy as well that, you know, especially if you're using task lists and you've got a way of really managing the things you need to get done every day.

We've all got that task that kind of like, Oh yeah, I'll do that. It's not pressing. And then just kind of gets left at the top of the list and you sort of leave it unchecked. The only person that you're disappointing is yourself at that point, like you are procrastinating that task. Why? Don't you want to do that?

Is it a case of not wanting to have a difficult conversation or not wanting to confront a really, you know, challenging thing that you, you'll need to change personally. And so I think a really strong awareness of when you are procrastinating or when you're sort of distracting yourself it's almost like a muscle that you can train over time.

You can become really, really. Aware of it really quickly and sort of pivot back into the thing that you need to be doing so it's also something that as you get busier and you need to start really ironing out all of the kinks and being more efficient having self-awareness is to I know I'm distracted in this situation and. Yeah, keeping an eye on that while you're trying to achieve some other stuff becomes really, really useful in the tool set. But when you do that, then you're also reinforcing that neural pathway to do that, you know, so it's like training your mind to not be as distracted and be, you know, as much of a procrastinator.

I  think it's important as well, you know, I think there's a lot of procrastination linked to. self-confidence and self-belief and identity.  And you know, I often talk to people who are, you know, early in their journey and they procrastinate about making a decision to do something that's logically going to help their business. 

But I think it is related to confidence. And I think there's an example, I think Caleb, you, you mentioned when we're planning this episode about the idea that, you know, Sometimes you don't complete tasks because there's so many incomplete tasks that it's a bit like opening a cupboard and you're scared to open the cupboard because if one thing falls out everything will fall out because it's so full of stuff and so you're sort of holding it shut. 

And if you don't open it, then the prompt doesn't show itself. So, you know, what are some of the strategies to, to overcome this? Burn the house down, never open any cupboard again. Get rid of it all. Where this analogy is about our own brains, Matt. So, please no one set your own head on fire here.

Oh, Matt wasn't serious.  Don't try at home kids.  That's right. No, that's so true. I know that has. I think it's almost a universal truth. And like what we're talking about, we're not going to solve the world's problems in like 30 minutes here because it's such a massive subject, right? Procrastination, productivity, getting more time, you know, we could have a whole series and probably there is, but.

This one one strategy is I think universally relevant and it is that idea of not completing tasks properly. There's a I learned this principle from Les Watson. He's called the Time Lord. He's, he's great. That's his thing is like, I'm pretty sure he calls himself the Time Lord, but he's a productivity dude.

And the completion cycle it actually has four, four steps, right? So you start a task,  you then move to continuing that task, you finish it, and then you acknowledge it. And where I think a lot, I know I have been guilty of this is start. Yes, I can start something. Yes, I can continue. And sometimes I finish things, but then I very rarely acknowledge That I've completed that it's the, it's also like coming back to another practice that we do in the elite group is the weekly wins.

If you don't celebrate the things that you've accomplished, you're missing out on a component of ticking a task off. It's like grit. It's like the task list you talked about Alana is where if you don't actually take it, that act of actually taking it off a list is part of getting rid of that. That task and that thought out of your brain.

But also just to jump in there quickly, cause I set this whole weekly wind thing up is, is it actually helps you to, it's used to not just complete the task, but it helps you celebrate. the achievement and then you can stop,  flush out your short-term memory, your RAM, and be like, okay, I achieved what I set out to achieve this week.

Let's go and enjoy the weekend. And on Monday you can start again. So it's like, it's a really powerful tool. And it's interesting, you know, you guys are pretty consistent with your weekly wins. And there are people that aren't, there are people that will only celebrate wins when they've had a great week.

But I find the most powerful time to celebrate a weekly win is when you've had a shit week.  And it's like, you've got to find something to celebrate. And it was actually Karen Ray a mentor of mine from a few years ago. We were in this, his K2 program and someone in the program died very suddenly, very big, big personality in the program, very big contributors.

And Jackie died at our desk like that one day. And everyone rallied around,  And Bruce, her husband, was like, you know, just trying to go into sort of organizing mode. And Kerwin would ring him every single morning and say, Bruce, tell me three things you're grateful for.  And it, and it was like a prompt to go, it doesn't matter how bad the situation is that you are in right now.

There are always things to be grateful for and gratitude is just this incredible way of saying, Hey, I achieved that. And I'm going to just give myself a little pat on the back because that was hard. And I managed to do it despite all of these challenges.  And I think it's such a, it's such an advanced strategy. 

From a neural perspective, from a self perspective to acknowledge your wins. And I just thought I wanted to kind of slip that in there. It's, you know, sometimes we talk about things that we do in the VBA  and it's so normalized, but it's actually very specific. And I want people watching this, listening to this to go and try it.

You know, at the end of your week, just write down three things you're grateful for that you achieved in the week. Yeah, it is honestly so powerful and it's worth highlighting because that, it, it speaks to the neural pathways as well and getting the dopamine hit that is essential for the, that whole completion cycle.

It actually rewards you and then you're, you're creating a well-worn path of starting something continuing, finishing and acknowledging, and then you can move on and you know you're building a habit of Of being rewarded for being productive. The, the, the exercise that that you, you referenced before, Den is, is, it's just gold, right?

So there's, the idea is that every one of us have all of these thoughts and tasks, all these incompletions that are held in our head, and they're not supposed to be held there. They're like, they're, you know, You know, they're in every area of our life. They're in work, they're at home, they're in social lives, they're in you know, every, every area of our lives, there's something or a whole long list of things in that sphere of our life that are being held in our head.

And that is the, the the closet, the full closet. That's almost about a burst. And if you don't don't release them, then. Not only do you become a bit numb to the reminders that come off in your head, you know, you'll be walking down somewhere, you'll be, you'll walk into your, your shed or your your garage and like, you'll be hit with all of these things that need to be done in that space.

But after a while that.  You get so many that you become numb to them. And so that's, you know, it's not a good place to be. I want to briefly run through the brain dump exercise. So this is an exercise by the way. Les told me this and I immediately came to the mastermind call. I think that the next week and I was like, guys, I've got this thing.

It's so good. And it was so good to see a lot of people getting value from it. But. This is what it is, right?  So, the way to get all of these things out of your head and become sensitive and sharper to what your brain's supposed to be doing and reminding you about things is you actually go through step by step in every area of your life and you write.

Everything out on paper, that is an incomplete task. That's an incompletion. So the a really great way of doing that. I think Les has like a prompt list and we did it in the room with him, but he just read out a bunch of words and they were all like trigger words, right?  , it was full on. It was like kitchen.

Garage bedroom and, and, you know, between each prompt word, we just give a little bit of space and everyone's madly writing down all the things that jump to your mind. You know, you say that trigger word and there'll be 10-plus things that come to your mind. What is incomplete in this area of my life?

What is my significant other always reminding me to do, or what does someone ask me? You know, one of the prompt words is wife.  Or, you know, husband or boyfriend, girlfriend, and you just go, Oh, those are all the things that I have to do. Like their birthday present. I have to I have to mow the lawn. I saw you were mowing the lawns before, Den that, that can often be an incompletion if you haven't gone out and done it and you, you'll look outside, you go yard, you go, ah, I gotta mow the lawns.

So the first step is going through, just list out the, the, make your own list of prompt words.  Every, every area of your life, space in your house you know,  place that you spend your time and interact with people and then just go through and go, what are all the things that jumped to my mind as things that I have to do, or I haven't done yet, or that are incomplete.

And then once they're all down, you go, ah, Yeah, they're all on paper, but you know, that's step one. That's so what they're all on paper. The point of the exercise is so that you can see them and they're no longer listed in your head. If they're all in your head, there's, there's no way you're going through that list in your mind and making any sense of it.

I I've said it on the podcast before that the brain is a great place to have an idea, but it's a terrible place to be. Terrible place to store it. So you need a system that is outside your head, outside your idea generator to to be able to organize the incompletions in your life, to be able to start ticking them off.

And it kind of goes back to there's a, there's a whole process that you go through there and it's, it's about organizing them into those areas of life organizing them into priority tasks and like things that need to be done in the next. You know, week, things that need to be done in the next six months and things that you probably don't, doesn't matter if you do or don't do them but if you've got them down on paper and then, and then you can go through and go about achieving them and ticking them off.

But it, the purpose really is to, Is about getting it out of your mind and freeing up this space because you only have so much space before you start getting overwhelmed and and your senses are dull and, and it's, it's all no good. And you'll end up in procrastination. And hopefully listening to this podcast episode, because you're sick of it. 

You know, I have a far less structured way of doing that. Of course, it's less structured than you, but I do my best thinking when I'm driving, because I'm not thinking, and that's when all the things that I've got to do come up. So I just utilize the dictation, Via Siri, that you can do, and I do it to reminders.

So Hey Siri, set a reminder at 5pm tomorrow to, and I just, Siri's just lit up on me there. And I just dump, I brain dump as I'm driving and that is so good. And then it's in reminders so you can also tick it off and get that dopamine hit when you do it. So that's, that's a really good way, just while you're driving, dictate away to Siri.

That's the really important point is like it has to be in a system that works for you that you can see every day Whether that's digital or physical it doesn't really matter. It just has to be a trusted system that you use so if you're like a Reminders person or you're a you're a notes person or a todoist like there's a million different apps that you could use or if you're a paper diary person, just make sure that once you've got the list, that it doesn't get thrown away and ignored and forgotten.

Right.  Well, it's like, you know, with with video production, right. You know, what do we do when we go on set? We, we have shortlists and we, and we get rewarded by taking off the shots on the  shortlist and it feels good. So actually playing to our strengths, having a system, having a list. And then picking the most important thing on that list and embedding that one thing strategy where you've got a clear diary and you put your big rock or the, or the frog is the first thing you do.

And then, and then it's like, ah, I've got a win to celebrate here. I kind of did that really hard thing. And usually, it's reaching out to people, following up people, calling clients, you know, following up on prospects. No one really loves doing that. Because there's a, there's a massive field of rejection and we have that system and you execute and you tick things off.

It's like, great.  So, Matt,  let's just sort of try and summarize this discussion with what is your key strategy to overcome procrastination? I think it's prioritise the big thing, whatever that is for you. What's going to move the needle and make everything else easier?  simpler, faster, the biggest thing should be addressed first and foremost.

And I think that there's a risk of not knowing what that is. Sometimes we sit down at a desk and go, I don't know what that is. So taking the time to, to think about that, that strategy or to use, you know, words we used earlier of, of what's your mission, what's the purpose of what you're doing and setting that for yourself.

To then help guide, okay, what are the big parts of this that I can really take forward and focus on? It's like, you know, going on a road trip and you're just jumping in the car and start driving versus going, I need to get to this destination. So today I'll drive from here to here and then from here to here the next day.

It's, you're driving both days, but there's a difference in the attitude and the intention behind what you're doing. So figure out what that big thing is and address that first. Yeah,  similarly Spend the time determining where you're going. Like, we all want to feel like a hero on a mission in our life.

And so, determining what your mission at the current stage of your life is could not be more valuable. And then.  Finding kind of tools and strategies to be able to clear your mind and set yourself up for success. I'd encourage you, to actually complete that brain dump exercise. It is cathartic. 

Nice. Alana, how about you?  Yeah. All the things that the guys have said, but I would say find yourself an accountability buddy or a community of people that are going to hold you accountable. Or as Matt said, just staying accountable to yourself and your bigger picture and your vision of what you want to achieve. 

And if all that doesn't work, just look at the hashtag next to Den's head.  Yeah. Good one. That is exactly right. It's just fucking do it.  You know, in some of the things you got to do in life, no one wants to do. If you just do it, usually you feel better once you've done it. So yeah. Awesome. JFDI, 

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