In this episode, we talk procrastination busters.
We all have any number of things that we may not particularly want to do but are necessary for business and in life. In this podcast, we dig into strategies you can use for making those tedious tasks more enjoyable so that you can get more done.
So how do you turn something you hate doing into something you love doing?
Start with focusing on getting small victories upfront. Pick a small number (such as ten cold calls or ten minutes at the gym) that represents your goal and then increase that number by a little bit over time until you get to your ultimate goal. This makes the whole process seem much less daunting. Ask yourself what the smallest thing is that you can do to get some movement toward your goal.
We also talk about batching and diffusing tasks as a way to make them more manageable. Batching is the act of grouping smaller time chunks that are dedicated to a regular task into a larger block of time, done less frequently. Conversely, if a task seems large and scary, you can diffuse it by breaking it down into smaller chunks and spreading those chunks out over a longer period of time.
Making your goals public is another effective way of staying on task. When other people know what it is you plan to do, you have to answer to them as well as yourself. In this way, it is much harder to make excuses. Find an accountability partner, someone you can confide your goals in and someone who will help hold you accountable for reaching them.
Rewarding yourself is another way to make a task more enjoyable. It gives you something tangible to look forward to when the work is completed. In a similar vein, you can pair an unenjoyable task with an enjoyable one to increase the chances that the unenjoyable task will get done. Listening to your favorite music while at the gym is a prime example of this.
Many super successful people cite “eating the frog” as one of the most efficient ways to get things done and end procrastination once and for all. When you “eat the frog” you take the most daunting or challenging task, the one you are looking forward to the least, and you knock that one out first. From there, you gain momentum and your day only gets easier.
Sometimes you simply need to change the way you think about a task to make it more enjoyable. Examine your inner narrative around a task that you’re avoiding. Are you telling yourself negative things about it? How can you reframe the work in a more positive light?
Timestamps
1:40 Casey’s Inside Out review
4:24 The real difference between those with discipline and those without
6:30 Celebrating the small victories
8:33 Figure out what’s blocking you
9:41 Batch processing tasks vs. diffusing tasks
12:52 Find an accountability partner and make your goals public
16:51 Understand the factors that make a task unenjoyable for you
21:21 Rewarding yourself as a strategy for getting things done
21:43 Pairing enjoyable tasks with unenjoyable tasks
25:32 Gamifying your goals and why it’s important to track your progress
28:15 ”Eat the frog” by doing the most unenjoyable thing on the list first
30:17 Change the story you tell yourself about the task
34:20 Love the process more than the task itself
35:18 Get grateful to change your inner narrative around unenjoyable tasks
37:20 Get to the why of why you’re doing a task in the first place
Links
Credits
Podcast produced and edited by Jacob Turnbloom
Intro and outro music created by Jacob Turnbloom
Show Notes by Desiree Moodie
Categorized in: Uncategorized
