Why Do We Procrastinate & How Can I Stop!?

Summary

In this episode of the Do Life podcast, Layla Dawn discusses the challenges of procrastination and the importance of motivation in achieving productivity. She emphasizes the need to break down tasks into manageable pieces, create effective work environments, and implement productivity techniques. The conversation also highlights the significance of tracking progress, celebrating wins, and maintaining a healthy mindset to overcome obstacles and achieve goals. 

P.S. I have dangly sleeves on and 3 cats in the house. If you're wondering what I'm doing with my hands under the table, I'm petting them or trying to keep my sleeves away from their claws. My cat, Stan Lee, even makes a cameo appearance at some point.

Takeaways

If you meditate the night before, visualize your tasks.
Automating decisions helps reduce decision fatigue.
Breaking tasks into smaller pieces can enhance motivation.
Creating a clean workspace can improve focus.
Using productivity techniques like the Pomodoro method can boost efficiency.
Setting boundaries and removing distractions is crucial for deep work.
Positive peer pressure can help keep you accountable.
Tracking progress helps identify areas for improvement.
Celebrating small wins reinforces positive behavior.
Rest and breaks are essential for sustained productivity.

Chapters

00:00 Understanding Self-Determination and Motivation
14:03 The Role of Discipline in Achieving Goals
23:08 Practical Productivity Techniques
31:40 Mindset and Overcoming Procrastination

Links

Do Life Website

www.layladawndoeslife.com

Certified Life and Business Coaching

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LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/layladawn/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3BPgTMeoJKSceLs9UXfCGN6g%3D%3D

Mermaid Division

Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556390078729

Lumivitae Bottle

https://layla7859158384984.lumivitae.com 

Lumivitae Join My Team

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Bioptimizers

https://bit.ly/4f6GI5Z

(Use Code; Dolife10)

https://youtu.be/ZV3S2kHEHvg?si=MhWLEWeYoM78ch0d

List of apps that help with productivity:  Eisenhower Matrix, Notion app, Trello, Asana, Motion AI, Re

Transcript

0:00

Hey friends, ever wonder why some days you feel like you're unstoppable and others you feel like you're stuck in quicksand? Well, stick around Because today we're gonna break down the science behind motivation, discipline, productivity, and how to beat procrastination. So in this episode, we'll explore why procrastination happens. the neuroscience behind motivation and discipline. And we'll end with a practical 10-step strategy. to help you supercharge your productivity. If you're ready to work smarter and not harder, let's get started. Step one, why we procrastinate. I think it's important to understand the science behind it. I know I've gone in depth in some of my other episodes, but we're gonna do it again. because you can't beat it if you don't understand it. First and foremost, procrastination is not about laziness, it's about your brain chemistry. I have often suffered from procrastination and it's been a struggle and I've recently been able to fight it. And it's hard, even since I've started this podcast, there's been days where I'm like, I need to record like five episodes to get caught up. I'm going to be out of town. I'm going to be busy. I'm doing this, the holidays, whatever. And I don't. And it's it's so frustrating because you're like, do the thing, do the thing. But your brain won't let you do the thing. Why? Why? It's so frustrating. So if you suffer from procrastination, you're not alone. And it's crazy because I feel like I'm one of the more disciplined people I know. If I decide I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it. The whole reason I'm gonna, I... The whole reason I have this podcast in the first place is because I told someone I was going to do it and I gave myself a deadline and I'm a woman of my word. So I stuck to it. And here I am. Here we are. All these months, years, whatever later. I'm here doing the thing because I am disciplined and a woman of my word. So why do I still procrastinate? First there's dopamine, the neurotransmitter that delivers pleasure and reward. when we scroll through social media or we binge watch several episodes of our favorite show get that instant dopamine hit. So when you compare that to working on a big project. with a payoff weeks or months away. It's easy to see why the brain chooses short-term rewards. Then there's the brains amygdala, the fear center. So when a task feels overwhelming or daunting. Your amygdala triggers avoidance. leading us to procrastinate and Add in temporal discounting. a cognitive bias that undervalues future rewards. And it's no wonder why we struggle. Just think about that report that you keep putting off and keep putting off and putting off. Every time you sit down at your desk, you organize your files, you go through your emails, you color or coordinate your pens, whatever it is you're doing to avoid, that's your brain seeking comfort and avoidance. it's also shown that procrastination leads to an adrenaline spike. when you wait till the last minute to do something and then you have to do it and you're in a timeline or a crunch or whatever the situation, you get that sense of adrenaline. So there's often times that your brain is addicted to that adrenaline so it procrastinates as a way to motivate you last second to get all those things done. Whatever cognitive reasoning you have behind procrastination, it's definitely a mental issue and not so much a willpower issue. Again, when I'm suffering from procrastination, I know I need to do the things that I'm not doing. It's not like I'm just lazy and I don't want to do them. I want to do them. I just can't at that time for whatever reason. Now, the good thing is procrastination isn't a disease or a disorder. It's just a behavioral trait. So it is something that we can overcome. Like I said, I have come leaps and bounds from procrastinating, Mostly because I've become cognitively aware of my shortcomings and knowing why I'm doing what I'm doing has been so helpful. So hopefully if any of this resonates with you, today's episode will help you at the very least just be more mindful of why it is you're doing what you're doing and then help you fight that battle a little bit. So now that we know a little bit about why procrastination happens, let's segue into motivation, the fuel that gets us going. So Motivation is deeply tied to your reward receptors and that dopamine that we mentioned earlier. So just the anticipation of a reward releases enough dopamine to energize us To engage in the act. This is why setting small achievable goals. works better than a longer prolonged goal. Each victory, each task, each goal, each accomplishment gives us a mini dopamine boost. So when you set the small goal of going to the gym, the second you show up to the gym, you feel that accomplishment. You got enough energy to go to the gym. Your goal wasn't to lose 20 pounds. Your goal wasn't to work out for an hour. Your goal was just to go to the gym. So that small act of something that you want to do that doesn't feel like such a long drawn out task, So I've talked about task segmenting and Breaking down a big task into small individual bite-sized pieces because each time you accomplish one of those you get that reward and then When you think about the next one that's an attainable easy accomplishable task you get another reward So if you have a project that's due at the end of the week and you give yourself little things to do every hour your You're focusing on each individual step and not the big picture a friend of mine often joke about how Our brains work when we have a task because we'll have the same task to do and we're so opposite in how we tackle it. She will hyper fixate on the first step. We envision a staircase and she will sit at that step and do everything that she needs to do on that step before it's complete, before even thinking or acknowledging another step exists. Whereas I will sit at the bottom of the step and meticulously calculate how do I get to the top and completely ignore all the other tasks in between or steps in between. And it's so funny how our brains work so oppositely, but if we could find that happy medium, that middle ground where you wanna get from point A to B instead of doing either of the things that we do, you just focus on the reward at each step. You're not focusing from start to finish. You're not focusing on just the start and not the finish. You're not focusing on just the finish and not the start. You're focusing on the steps in between the start and the finish. And that's where the real reward comes from. And that's where the real progress is made. And that's a mindset shift that we both had recently that we've been holding ourselves accountable to every time, you know, I say something and I'm focused on that end. She's like, what's your first step? And every time she says something and she's focused on that first step and I'm like, well, what's your next step? And it's just so funny to to see us be aware of these things. So. If you have a big goal or big daunting task, break it down into bite-sized pieces. Work backwards. What is your goal? What's your task? Work backwards from now to then. What are the steps in between? And those will not only help you eliminate procrastination, it won't seem as heavy or burdensome, and you'll have little bite-sized pieces that you can tackle that will induce that reward center in your brain and make it easier to accomplish the whole task in general. There's also intrinsic motivation, internal satisfaction. versus extrinsic motivation. like external rewards or recognition. Studies show intrinsic motivation is more sustainable over time. So if you could learn how to reward yourself and be happy and grateful and thankful for the things that you're doing and the tasks that your accomplishment as opposed to needing a gold star, needing a pat on the back, needing verbal recognition from someone, you're gonna be better off in the long run because you're not gonna be looking for external validation for motivation. And that kind of leads into the self-determination theory. And that highlights our three key needs, autonomy, feeling in control, competence, that feeling capable. and relatedness, that feeling of connectedness. When these needs are met, our motivation skyrockets. So if you're struggling with a goal or task or something that you need more motivation in, See where you could possibly be lacking in those three key areas. So a couple practical tips to help motivate yourself is ask yourself, why am I doing this? What is my why? I love this question for so many reasons. Like, what is your why? Why are you doing this? Why do you want to accomplish this? Why are you working so hard? Why are you worried about this? Why whatever? What is your why? Why is this important to me and how will this improve my life? The answer to those questions should motivate you and if it doesn't, then maybe you need to reevaluate why you're working on this in the first place. because that'll give you detailed information on why you're struggling with procrastination in the first place. And then like I said earlier, celebrate your small wins. Each task you complete, don't just finish it and go to the next one. Give yourself a moment to reflect and be grateful and thankful and happy and celebrate. Celebrate yourself. We spend so much time beating ourself up and we do something wrong. How much time do you spend celebrating yourself when you do something right? Take that moment and give yourself the recognition that you deserve. That'll also help motivate you more in the long term. Like, even just crossing something off of your list or checking that box can give you unparalleled momentum in the motivation department. Also, you can take a moment each day to visualize your success. I do the six phase meditation and it's, you visualize your day, you visualize how your day is going to transpire. And it helps almost manifest that into fruition. So when you're doing your morning meditation or even if you meditate. If you meditate the night before, visualize your next day, visualize yourself accomplishing those tasks. You get the motivation, you get the reward, you feel the feelings of having it accomplished and that you can use as motivation to actually do the thing. I've heard somebody talk about... They're working at a job and they hate their job. And I know a lot of people can resonate with that. And what the mindset shift is there because it's so hard to not, like if you're doing a job that you don't like, it's easy to procrastinate because you don't want to do the thing. Like your what is your why, where's your motivation? There isn't any. Your paycheck at the end of the day, are you getting paid to do any more than you already are or work any faster? So there's no motivation there. So when you're thinking of how to procrastinate or how not to procrastinate, on like a work project or something that you're doing for your business, look at it as like, what is your end game? Like, so this. Okay, in this scenario specifically, this girl wanted to start her own business and she was saving up a bunch of money so she could break free from her corporate life and get out of the matrix and be her own boss and run her own business and have her own life and schedule and all of the things. So when she was lacking motivation for... the projects that she needed to do at work, she would look at it as this business is giving her a loan to start her career. So every paycheck she made, she was looking at this business believes in her that in her future and they're giving her money to prove that she's capable of doing these things. So instead of being like, this is just a dead end job. I hate this job. I hate my coworkers. I can't stand this place. I don't want to wake up early. I wish I was at home with my kids or my spouse or whatever. Instead of looking at all the things she didn't like, she tricked herself into believing this job is paying for my future. They're giving me money to do these small tasks to accomplish these things. so they can give me money to work towards my future. And that small little mindset shift made her so successful. Like she's she's doing amazing and. And if there's something that you can learn from that and take away is maybe reevaluate how you think about your situation and what it is that you're doing. If you're doing something that you don't want to do and you can't find the motivation to do it, it's something that you have to do or need to do for other reasons. How can you convince yourself that it's something that you want to do or you like, or what is what is the end game? What is the ultimate purpose behind this? Like. Especially when it comes to working your normal job. Can you picture? Hey this task I have to get done is going to feed my child and I think of how happy they're gonna be at the table doing their little happy carb dance because they're they're eating their favorite foods like is that your motivation like where where can you Create a story in your brain. That's not crazy that is actually relevant and makes sense that you can use to to motivate you just a fun little tool that I learned that I thought was helpful and valuable. So we've talked a lot about motivation, but let's talk about discipline. It's entirely different and very relevant in this situation. So. When we think about the difference between motivation and discipline, motivation gets you moving and discipline helps you finish it. Discipline is all about habits. and habits are rooted in neuroscience. every time you repeat a pattern, the brain... strengthens the neural pathways associated with it. This is called neuroplasticity. The habit loop, cue, routine, reward is key. So for example. if your queue is finishing breakfast. your routine could be reviewing your task list immediately afterwards or during. and then your reward could be a sense of clarity or direction for the rest of the day. But remember willpower is limited. We're not gonna get into willpower today because it's different and it's hard to, we're just not gonna, So automating decisions and creating systems is so important because it gets you out of the. There's there's a such a thing called decision fatigue. And I know like there's a handful of like rich people. They'll wear the same outfits over and over. I don't want to say rich people, but like very successful people, very high up in business like Steve Jobs, maybe one of them. I know there's somebody that wore the same outfit every day. And when somebody asked him why, they said that's just one less decision that they have to make during the day. And they wanted to save their brain power and decision making skills on things that really mattered and not whether or not they should wear blue or gray shirt. So I thought that was kind of important because I've also suffered from decision fatigue. I've made a million decisions in a day and then by the time I get home, it's what do want to eat tonight? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? Who do you want to know? Stop, stop, stop. Don't ask me any more questions. So when you have the answers automated, if you sit down and you build a schedule, OK, all of these days, Monday through Friday, here's the meals, here's the plan, here's what we're doing. It's already planned out. You don't have to make a decision. It's there for you. the more decisions that you can automate, the better. And then when it comes to creating systems, like, okay, so. We're gonna have meatloaf on Mondays. Who's gonna make it? How are we? So many more complications. Systemize it, okay? You make food Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I make food Thursday, Wednesday, Friday, whatever. So you're automating decisions and you're automating systems and that takes so much off of your plate. So when you need that motivation or that willpower to do the task, half of it's already figured out for you. So the more that you can plan in the beginning, the better off you will be in the long run. Was it Abraham Lincoln? Don't hate me if I'm wrong on that. I'm 90 % sure it's Abraham Lincoln who said, if you give me four hours to chop a pile of wood, I'm gonna spend the first two hours sharpening my axe. And it's basically saying the better you are prepared to do something, the... more efficient you'll be at it. So when it comes to motivating and procrastinating and doing all the things, the more steps that you can take initially to overcome those obstacles when they show up, the better you'll be in the long run. So some practical tools in doing those things would be. Use time blocking to schedule deep work periods for 90 minutes, 20 minutes, however long you can stay focused on the task at hand. I like to work two to three hours at a time and I do the thing and then I give myself 30 minutes in between. It is so very important that when you do something like time blocking and you're scheduling yourself to hyper focus on something until it's done or until your time is up that you give yourself a decent break in between of something that completely the opposite. Don't go for this task to something else for 30 minutes and then to something different. No, that 30 minutes needs to be completely different. Get up, go walk around, read a book, take your mind off of things. Do something completely different. But make sure that when you're doing your, call them deep work sessions, that you're You have a plan in place. So if I say I'm going to deep work on my podcast and then I sit down and I'm going to spend the first 10 minutes like, OK, what do I need to do? So no, if I say I'm going to deep work two hours for my podcast, I'm going to plan my I'm going to plan my episodes. I'm going to write my outlines. I'm going to script them out and get everything done and ready. So all I have to do the next deep work session is record them. So have a plan when I talk about making that plan. So when you're doing your deep work sessions, maybe you do a 90 minute deep work session of just planning. That's perfectly fine. That's more than fine. Like, please do that actually. So yeah, so you can plan your work in segments. If you have a hard time following a schedule or staying in line with that, you can use apps. I know we've talked about like Asana and Trello and... Norton and things like that. So there's apps that can help you stay on target and plan and prioritize things. Also make sure that your workspace is clear. Declutter your desk. Having a cluttered space will also clutter your mind and creates more barriers and conflicts than you're really actually cognitively aware of. So having a clean work environment. Now some people like, have, it looks like clutter to me, but it's organized piles. They know what the piles is. It's not clutter, it's work and it's. However you do it, but if you're like me and you need everything has a home and it needs to be in it then do that because if it's not there it's way more distracting than you you can even acknowledge. And before you block out 90 minutes of deep work, so what I did is I started with like five minutes at a time. And I did, OK, so for five minutes, I'm going to check all my emails and I'm going to just do my emails for five minutes. And then I learned that I could hyper fixate on that. And if I'm going to check my emails, I'm to give myself two hours to check my emails because I'm not going to pay attention to five minutes. Five minutes is two hours, apparently. Like if I'm doing something in the zone, I'm doing what I need to do. So having timers or. learning yourself. You know, if if I'm doing something I really don't want to do, I find I do it longer once I start doing it. Like the act of doing it is so hard for me to convince myself to do. But then when I'm doing it, it's fine. And I'm going to do it until it's done. Like if you don't want to do the dishes, you put so much resistance towards doing the dishes. But then when you're actually doing the dishes, you're like, I don't understand why I act like that. That wasn't this isn't that bad. And you do them until they're done. So it's just it's a weird thing. But until you know your brain and how you react to things and how much time and energy you can focus on one thing. Start small with bite-sized tasks. Give yourself 20 minute deep work sessions and then if you end up working longer, great. If you're available for that then do that. Make sure you set boundaries, turn off notifications, remove distractions. I know some people will put their phone in the other room so they can do what they need to do. I work on my phone 90 % of the time. I'm on my laptop and I'm editing things, I'm recording things, so I can't put my phone in the other room and my notifications stay off 90 % of the time. have my watch tells me if somebody texts me or calls me and other than that, all my other notifications are turned off or on silent because my phone doesn't get dictate my life I look at my phone when it's convenient for me and not just because somebody wants me to like that's so if you ever message me or call me and I don't respond right away I'm busy if somebody messages me right now I'm not answering it I'm in the middle of a podcast I'll get to you when I get to you If you send me an email, I look at my emails in the morning and then that night before I go to bed. So if you send me an email at five o'clock in the afternoon, I'm probably not going to respond until the next day because I'm going look at that at 10 o'clock and I'm not going to send you an email at 10 o'clock because I don't want you to respond to 10 o'clock because I'm done with my emails. And so I'll schedule it to send it to you the next day. And what I'm saying, basically all of this rambling is just to say set boundaries and turn off notifications, remove distractions. If you're going to do a deep work session, do that. When you make a plan to do something do the thing and don't let all the other things again if I do a deep work session and I'm Committed to doing something and I spend an hour of that two hours cleaning my desk. That's procrastination and we're trying to eliminate procrastination so Having a clean workspace having everything set up having your your act sharpened will enable you to do that deep work session and get your project accomplished and avoid further procrastination. And then if you've read the book Atomic Habits by James, James Clear. I think that's the name. Man, I'm really bad at this. I should prepare a little bit more for citations and things. Anyway, this is just me just talking out of my brain. But he wrote the book called Atomic Habits and he talks about habit stacking. So there's things that you automatically do every day. You wake up, you brush your teeth. So when you want to incorporate a new habit, add that habit to something you already do. So like I wanted to learn how to do morning affirmations. So when I'm staring at the mirror brushing my teeth, I'm talking to myself mentally in my head and I'm saying nice happy things about how my day is going to go. if you want to. read 10 pages of a book, maybe incorporate that with your nighttime routine. You brush your teeth, you wash your face, you put your pajamas on, and then when you climb into bed, now that's part of your bedtime routine. You read 10 pages and then you go to sleep instead of scrolling on your phone for four hours on accident or whatever it is that you normally do. So habit stacking is a great way to form new habits and to create routines that will eliminate distractions That will help you stay on target and get your tasks done. So let's bring it all together. with a step-by-step productivity plan. you can tweak this or edit this however you see fit. Again, the best thing for you to do is whatever you're gonna do, whatever works for you and however it works for you. So none of this is like set in stone. But I don't know if you know what a SMART goal is. It's an acronym SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable or accountable, time bound and realistic. That is my dyslexia in full swing. Specific, measurable, attainable or actionable. Relatable or realistic. and time bound. So when you. So if you have a goal or specific something that you want to accomplish, see if you can make it a smart goal, see if you can break it down into those specific measurable actionable steps to accomplish it better and faster. Step two would be to use the Eisenhower matrix, The Eisenhower matrix is prioritizing, so important, urgent, not important, not urgent, and everything in between. So I guess I can explain this to you. It's important and urgent means do it now. Important but not urgent means scheduled a time to do it. Urgent but not important means delegate. Can somebody else do this? If it's neither important. or urgent, get rid of it. So when you're looking at your task and where you want to prioritize your goals, that matrix is pretty helpful. And then we talked about breaking down your task. writing a report could be, you know, an hour of research and reading about it. 30 minutes of rough drafts and editing and then maybe 30 minutes of writing an outline and then 20 minutes of write the intro. So break it down, each individual task into small bite-sized pieces that, that activates the reward receptors in our brain that we talked about earlier. Step three is implement productivity techniques. And what that means is... create a daily routine. Start with meditating for 25 minutes and then you... do a quick exercise and then you do your morning work and then midday you stop, eat your lunch, you take a break, you go for a walk, you do another task and then in the evening you have dinner and then you do the things and whatever. You reflect and plan and figure out your day for tomorrow and reflect on how your today went. So, Creating a routine will help you stay structured. Again, it eliminates distractions and procrastination if you have a system in place. We talked about how important that is. And then there's also the Pomodoro technique, the Pomodoro technique, however you say it, whatever, where you task batch 25 minute segments at a time. So you do something for 25 minutes and then you take a five minute break. You hyper-focus on something for 25 minutes and then you take a five minute break. And it's super important, make sure that break that you take is completely different from whatever the task is. And then we talked about task batching in another episode, maybe this one earlier, but that's where, know, you say, okay, so like, I'm going to record all of my episodes for the podcast for the next month. In this three hour session that I have, I'm going to go through all my, my emails, for the first two hours of every morning or something along those lines. So that's your task batching. So that's, that's implementing productivity techniques in a nutshell. And then you've got your cultivate motivation. We went through all the ways that you can motivate yourself. What are some things that you can do to cultivate that extra motivation? So like. So you find your wins, figure out what your why is and use that as motivation. Cultivate small wins. So we talked about like little tiny goals and then visualize your success. So that will help cultivate that motivation that you need. then we talked about building discipline. So. habit stacking, setting boundaries, getting rid of distractions. and optimize your environment. So are you getting enough sleep? Are you eating the right foods? Are you removing distractions? Are you surrounding yourself with the right people? It's really hard to stay motivated and not procrastinate when you have people that are constantly trying to get you to do things that are not what you need to be doing. So make sure you optimize your environment as much as possible. I understand that some situations you just can't remove yourself from certain circumstances, but when you can, do what you can. You can use positive peer pressure, so. Positive peer pressure is such a unique concept for so many people, but when you have friends that are like your hype men that are there for you that are telling you, yeah, girl, go get that thing, go do the thing. Tell them your goals, tell them what you're working on and have them help hold you accountable. I talked about the friend of mine where we look at the steps differently and we hold each other accountable to. work on all the steps and not just skipping them or focusing on one. So use positive peer pressure as a reinforcement, as a way to overcome procrastination. then like I said, reframe your challenges from I have to do this to I get to do this. Or like I said, the girl whose boss, whose job is supporting her future. So how can you reframe your mindset? Those are all just some ways to overcome procrastination. And then of course, track and reflect. Do your daily check-ins, check-in, check-outs. I like to do visualization in the morning and then reflection at the night. Like what did I do today that I said I was gonna do? What didn't I do? What could I have done better? What were some of the challenges and obstacles I came in? So make sure you're reflecting and tracking what you do and where your procrastination lies and how to avoid it and do better in the future. I do daily, weekly, monthly review as much and as often as you can. Don't use that as a way to procrastinate. Use that as a way to keep you on target and keep you from procrastinating. Step eight would be to re-board yourself. Like I said, make sure that you stop and you recognize yourself for each individual task that you are accomplishing. Give yourself that recognition, take your breaks, do what you need to. And then when you accomplish big milestones, like you finish the task. So we reward ourselves each individual step, but when we accomplish the whole thing, give yourself a big reward. When I get, I try to use social media as a reward. So if I finish my task for the day, then I can play on social media. If I've been working on a project for a month and I finally accomplished it, I'm gonna take myself out to dinner. So find some ways to reward yourself for big milestones. You get small rewards recognized when you have your small accomplishments, celebrate every win and then maybe celebrate every win accordingly. If it's a small win, it's a small celebration. If it's a big win, it's a big celebration. Just don't go overboard and be mindful. Step nine was leverage technology. So use your tools to stay organized, your notion, your Trello, Asana, Tadorist, all of the things, whatever is gonna help you stay on task. And then you've got different apps to help you focus, like Forest and Freedom and Cold Turkey. Those are some apps that will help you stay focused on certain things. And then automate repetitive tasks. Apps like Zapier, Zapier, however you say it, And IFTTT, certain things. Again, if that's something that you'll find helpful. And then number 10 is my favorite, your mindset. Practice self-compassion. Except that setbacks are gonna happen. There's gonna be distractions. You're gonna get off tasks. Something's might be a mistake There's gonna be there's life happens and you have to be flexible. So When something happens don't just be like, that's it. I'm done. I screwed up. I'm Forget it. We're done with this task. We're never doing it again No, just understand that should happens and move forward In the words of Dr. Nita, that sucked, now what? Focus on progress, not perfection. So it's about the individual steps. It's about accomplishing the steps, not doing everything perfect. I referenced the stairs between me and my friend again. She wanted to hyper-focus on the one step and make sure everything was perfect and then never made it to the next step where... she was too focused on the perfection instead of just here's the step, do the next thing. Meanwhile, I was doing the same. I was so focused on how do I get to the end game in the most effective, appropriate way possible that I wasn't seeing the individual steps. on the progress and not the perfection. And adopt a growth mindset. embrace challenges as opportunities for growth every time something negative Seemingly negative happens in my life. I always kind of reflect like okay. What was I meant to learn from this? What was this supposed to teach me? What do I know now that I didn't know then and it's really hard when you're going through it in the moment to be like Okay, what is this teaching me? Why am I crying right now? No, that's that's not what I'm saying I'm just saying like okay I wanted to do this thing and this thing screwed up and this didn't happen and this didn't happen like what do I need to? I need to learn that I need to refocus how I delegate. need to re-approach how I communicate with other people. I need to re-evaluate my role in this process, whatever it is. So those are the 10 steps. If I didn't list them, because I don't think I did initially. step one is to clarify and prioritize your goals using the SMART method, if applicable. Step two is to break down your tasks. Step three is to implement productivity techniques. Step four is to cultivate motivation. Step five is build discipline. Step six is to overcome procrastination. Step seven is track and reflect. Step 8 is reward yourself. Step nine is to leverage technology. And step 10 is to adjust your mindset. So your action item for the week would be to pick one or all. Pick any of these. pick at least one or as many of these steps as you can and implement them this week. You'll be amazed at the difference that it makes. And I just want to reiterate some of the key points that we covered. Perfectionism kills progress. Focus on the progress and not the perfection. Overcommitment leads to burnout. Learn to say no. So some tips to overcoming pitfalls. we talked about perfectionism kills progress. Focus on the progress, not the perfection. Two, set healthy boundaries, say no. Overcommitment can lead to burnout, which can lead to procrastination. So learn to say no. Rest isn't optional. Sleep is essential. Prioritize breaks. When you do your breaks, make sure they're breaks. Don't move from task to task to task. Take your breaks. Your brain needs the breaks. Your body needs the breaks. Everything needs the breaks. Breaks are essential. Rest isn't optional. Negative self-talk. I did a whole episode on that negative self-talk can drain you Negative self-talk can derail you. practice self-compassion and positive affirmations. So those are just some quick tips to overcome common pitfalls. So to recap, productivity isn't about doing more, it's about doing what matters. Understanding procrastination, leveraging motivation and understanding discipline are the keys to success. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Hopefully you found value in this. Please like, share, comment, subscribe, do all the things. Follow me on socials. Go to my website if you want to book one-on-one coaching with me. I love and appreciate you. really thank you for being here and let's go do life productively. Bye guys. Thank you so much.