Episode 29: Busted! Caught procrastinating!

00:00 Before we get going, I have an invitation for you. If you're ready to find out how much easier it becomes to get things done when you have Make It Happen Club in your life? The doors are open to new members right now and i would love for you to join us! So Make It Happen club is a calm quiet sanctuary where you get the clarity focus and motivation you need Hello and welcome to Unfrazzle with me Louise Miller. If you're a solo business owner and you have a big exciting vision and loads of ideas that you want to get out in the world but without drowning in a sea of overwhelm, then this is the podcast for you. Each week I'll be sharing bite-sized insights to help you stop faffing and stay focused so you can make your brilliant ideas happen and make a bigger impact in the world It's time to step away from the hustle and find a kinder more sustainable approach to productivity So grab yourself a cuppa and let's get started

01:31 I recently caught myself procrastinating, doing something that i know my clients sometimes do and that maybe you do too. So I thought I would share it with you here in the hope that it might help so I caught myself sitting with a Google Sheet that was designed to help me keep track of content ideas It was shared with me earlier this week and its really great template but after sitting with it for a little while this afternoon I thought I wonder whether this might work better for me in Trello So off I went over to Trello and created a whole load of Trello boards, and started to play over there. Actually replicating the thing that was in the Google Sheet And i'd been doing that for about 10-15 minutes before I realised No Louise this is not a good use of your time This isn't going to be any better in Trello The Google sheet you have in front of you is perfectly fine What I realised was that I had retreated back To my happy place of organising stuff

02:30 And the other thing I realised when I paused is that actually, I was really tired and that the work I should have been doing which was thinking about content ideas and how to fit them into this wonderful template was proving a bit of a struggle because i'm tired. It doesn't come naturally and easily to me! I know that I need to be at my best and I need to have some energy when I'm trying to do that kind of work so when I realized all of this And then another time I caught myself procrastinating was when I decided that I needed to gather together all of the copy that I've written to promote my online workshop and to promote Make It Happen Club. Now this is a bit different from what I was trying to do in Trello because this actually

03:27 I'm a big believer in not reinventing the wheel and trying to keep things as simple as possible in my business. And that includes repurposing content, so I knew that organizing the content in this way would save me time in the long run. So this was not a procrastination task! I knew that this was going to make things so much easier moving forward but oh my goodness was it dull? I was SO bored doing this work and it actually ended up being a 78 page document And all I was doing was copying and pasting and formatting. And, I noticed that I kept getting up out of my seat and walking towards the door in a bid to escape. Once or twice I actually left the room and went to get chocolate or go look out a window but at least half of the time I noticed myself getting up out of my seat and walk towards the door. I was able to catch myself wanting to run away from my discomfort and boredom

04:24 And I was able to force myself to sit back down and keep going. So I stopped myself from taking that break because i knew how much i would hate coming back to the task after the break and how great i would feel if i could you know take that little time out knowing that it was done so that when i came back to my desk, i could start doing something a bit more interesting. So i sat back down and i kept going! So...I'm just sharing this with you in case that resonates and is something you notice yourself doing too because procrastination is often what happens when we're feeling some sort of discomfort

05:05 So that could be boredom or it might be that you're about to do something that feels scary but growth rarely happens inside your comfort zone. If you spot yourself retreating, whether that's literally walking towards the door as I was doing or maybe heading to your happy place instead of doing the work... so for me in that first example that was me messing around in Trello instead of doing the work I invite you to see how quickly you can spot yourself doing that because the quicker you catch yourself, the sooner you can get yourself back into meaningful action. And i think people are often looking for a quick and easy fix for procrastination but what if the fix is to notice the discomfort? To sit with it and do the thing anyway! And I know that doesn't sound very appealing but what if that's the only way through so is that something that you can play with during the week ahead?

06:00 Alright, I hope that helps and look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you for listening to Unfrazzle! Sharing is caring so if you loved this episode please share it on your socials or head over to Spotify iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and leave me a review not only will i be hugely grateful your ratings and reviews will help others to find this podcast so that even more people can make their ideas happen thanks so much and see you next time