How to stop procrastinating and get #&%t done!

May 30, 2025

Dear Karyn

I saw a post of yours a while ago about procrastination and I was sure I’d saved it but now I can’t find it.

I know procrastination’s a pretty stupid thing to get stuck with and I’ve tried a range of different strategies. I really like ‘the one thing’ concept and I’m quite disciplined at using this at the start of each day and deciding on my highest priority but still I get to the end of the day and find the one thing’s not done! This isn’t true all the time but it’s true often enough that I feel really frustrated with myself.

If I know the thing that’s the highest priority, why do I let all the smaller things get in the way of doing it?

Can you please help?

PA

Dearest PA

I love Gary Keller’s ‘The One Thing’ approach, too. It’s a brilliant time management strategy.

But here’s the thing:

Procrastination is not a time management issue. Procrastination is an emotion management issue.

And emotions are never stupid.

This is probably the theme of my post you remember from last year.

You wouldn’t be in an executive leadership position if you couldn’t manage both your time and your priorities, so time management strategies have been and continue to be useful for you in managing your workload.

But no matter how strong your discipline and how strategic your time management, procrastination can be an absolute thief of time, energy, focus and satisfaction.

Procrastination doesn’t happen to you on every task, does it? Mostly it’s the important ones, which makes it even harder for us to understand, logically, rationally, intellectually, why we’re procrastinating at all.

And that’s because the thing that’s stopping you progressing that priority you’ve made number one for the day isn’t logical or rational at all. The thing that’s stopping you is an emotion attached to the task.

It could be nervousness — perhaps you’re not sure you know exactly how to approach it and you’re afraid you’ll get the wrong outcome.

It could be resentment — perhaps you think the task actually belongs to somebody else and you’re stewing about having to do it.

It could be frustration or a sense of futility — perhaps you suspect the task is not going to get the attention it deserves once it’s completed (writing budget submissions used to be my own example of this: I knew the resources needed and I knew the lack of appetite from my boss for seeking those resources).

It could be boredom — perhaps you’ve done this task before (perhaps over and over) and while you’re competent at it you find it tedious, unpleasant and uninspiring.

It could be any uncomfortable emotion, really, that gets in the way of you getting on with a task.

So what’s to be done? It’s a really simple process.

First, when you’re trying to get started with a task and can’t seem to make any headway, sit with that discomfort. Just recognise you’re blocked, and know it’s an emotion that’s getting in the way.

You’re not going to solve this by thinking about it. You’re going to work this out by feeling it.

In that moment when you realise you’re procrastinating, I want you to find yourself a quiet space and sit with yourself and listen to what your body’s telling you. This takes practice.

What are you feeling? What’s the emotion? (If you struggle to identify a particular emotion, hit me up with a DM for a resource that can help with this.)

Once you’ve identified what that emotion is, just sit with it for a minute or two. Allow yourself to feel it. Where in your body is it located (emotions are always housed in our bodies)? What does it feel like?

Okay. So now you know the emotion you’re feeling, where you feel it, how it feels. Once you’ve labelled it, you’ll often realise exactly why you’re procrastinating. It becomes obvious from the emotion.

What’s causing that emotion?

If it’s fear, what is it you’re afraid or nervous of? We can fear many things: we can fear failure; we can fear loss; we can fear exhaustion

If it’s anger, that’s a sure sign one of your boundaries has been crossed. Who are you angry with? (You might be angry with somebody else; you might be angry with yourself. Sit with this question.)

If it’s resentment, what are you resentful of? Is there an inherent injustice in this task? Or somebody or something you envy?

These are just a few examples. But if you tune into your emotion and ask yourself why you’re feeling it, the reason for your procrastination will come to you.

Next you need to decide the most useful way to deal with the emotion, so you can work out the most useful way to deal with the task.

Quite often when it comes to smashing procrastination, it’s enough to work out what’s going on with you emotionally, because then you can call on your sage inner self — your compassionate self, your loving self, your forgiving self, your self that values justice or service or excellence — and you can just decide:

Yes, it is boring, and yes I would rather be doing something else, and yes, it does seem unfair I have to spend my Friday night at the office after everybody else has gone home. It’s boring. It’s unfair. It sucks. I’m going do a little cranky dance to release that emotion. I’m going to swear a little, maybe slam the door.

OR: I’m scared of this project, I’m worried I won’t do it well. In fact, I’m so worried, while I’m sitting here staring at my screen and worrying, I’m going to start to cry. I’m going to scream, “I can’t do it! I don’t know how!”, I might slam something then too

I’m going to cry and slam and swear and release that uncomfortable emotion and then I’m going to get on with it. Because that’s what we do, isn’t it? We release emotional energy – we cry, we swear, we rant, we vent, we slam – and then when the emotion’s left our body, we take a deep breath, we calm ourselves, we get on with it.

Our thoughts catch up with our emotional release and we start to tell ourselves, it’s true I haven’t done this before, but I’ve got all the expertise I need to do it and I’m just going to break it down into steps.

Or we tell ourselves, it’s true, I’d much rather be somewhere else today but it has to be done and the sooner I get on and do it, the sooner I’m out of here.

Or we tell ourselves, it really isn’t fair that this has landed on my desk tonight, and I’m going to be sure to make that point to my colleague when I next see them, but in the meantime it’s important that it gets done so let’s just get on with it.

OR we tell ourselves: you know, I really DON’T want to do this task. It doesn’t align with my values, it’s taking me away from something else that’s more important to me, I don’t NEED to do it, I DON’T want to do it, I’m NOT doing it, and I’m going to accept and mitigate the consequences of that decision. And therefore I’m NOT going to get on with the task, I’m going to get on with dealing with the consequences of not doing the task.

Now, that last example might sound a little like more procrastination, because it can sound a lot like the stories we tell ourselves in our heads when we’re procrastinating. The difference is, we’ve identified the true source of the procrastination; we’ve unlocked the emotion and are now clear in our feelings and thoughts to make the decision we need to make or take the action we need to take.

Almost always, this process is enough to get you through the emotion you’re feeling into your rational, sage, pragmatic self and over the procrastination hurdle.

Almost always.

Sometimes the emotion runs so deep it needs more than just those few moments of emotional exploration and clarity. When that happens, you need another strategy.

I encourage you to try this out and see if it works for you. It almost always will. And if it doesn’t, arrange a call with me and we can talk it through.

Much love to you,

Karyn x