Why Procrastination Sabotages Teams And How To Stop It Today

Procrastination doesn’t always look like laziness; it often wears the mask of perfectionism, fuzzy priorities, or the hope that clarity will arrive tomorrow. We take a hard look at how delay erodes leadership credibility, weakens teams, and blunts the impact we’re called to make as faithful stewards, then map out practical steps to replace hesitation with confident action rooted in Scripture.

We start by naming procrastination for what it is: a voluntary delay with known costs. From there, we connect timeless wisdom—Proverbs’ call to diligence and Paul’s charge to work wholeheartedly—to the real pressures leaders face. You’ll hear why organizations stall, how trust frays when decisions drag, and what history teaches through cases like the Challenger launch, Kodak’s digital pivot, and the Boeing 737 Max grounding. These stories reveal the price of normalized delay and the urgency of building cultures that act with care and conviction.

Next, we move from insight to implementation. Learn how to shift your mindset from perfection to progress, journal your triggers, and set clear, even artificial, deadlines that keep important work from becoming urgent. We break down the Eisenhower Matrix and the Pareto principle, show how 90-minute deep-work blocks and 25-minute focus sprints create momentum, and offer decision frameworks that turn big choices into smaller, doable steps. Accountability takes center stage with practical ways to involve mentors and peers, along with biblical models like Nathan and Jethro that demonstrate healthy challenge. We close by building systems—automations, reviews, and simple dashboards—that make consistency easier than delay.

If you’re ready to trade drift for diligence and align your leadership with purpose, this conversation will give you the tools, language, and confidence to start today. Subscribe, share this episode with a leader who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s one task you’ll finish before the day ends?

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Audience Greeting
• 1:07 Call To Share And Community Shoutout
• 1:48 Procrastination Defined And Biblical Frame
• 3:43 The Cost Of Delay In Leadership
• 5:14 Challenger Case: Consequences Of Hesitation
• 7:29 Spiritual, Organizational, And Team Costs
• 9:26 Kodak’s Missed Pivot To Digital
• 11:13 Root Causes: Fear, Perfection, Comfort
• 13:18 Mindset Shifts And Self-Awareness
• 15:07 Time Blocking And Focused Work
• 16:35 Prioritization With Eisenhower Matrix
• 18:16 Decision Frameworks And Small Starts
• 19:50 Accountability And Biblical Examples
• 22:00 Systems, Reviews, And Tools
• 23:50 Boeing 737 Max: Delay And Disaster
• 25:27 Habits, Resources, And Next Steps
• 27:06 Prayer, Closing, And Final CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to the Christian Business Concepts with your host, Harold Milbys. Christian Business Concepts.

SPEAKER_00: 0:17

Thanks, Kelly, and a big welcome to all of you who have decided to listen to this podcast. I'm your host, Harold Milby. This is Christian Business Concepts. And you know, every week we try to discuss leadership topics and and biblical principles that can be applied to those specific topics and help bring true godly success to those of you who are listening or trying to grow as a leader, uh a business owner, or just someone that uh uh is a person who just wants to grow as a person. And so whether you're a regular listener or if this is your first time, I just pray that this podcast will be encouraging, enlightening, and empowering you to help you to grow and become a better leader and a better person. Now, please be sure to help the CBC family grow by sharing this podcast with four or five other people that you know that it could possibly help. And better yet, post this uh uh uh podcast link to uh your Facebook and LinkedIn pages. That'll be a huge help to us. We greatly appreciate that. Now, today I want to give a big shout out to Red Oak, Texas here in the United States for having so many downloads. Uh, this is the first time that we've had people from Red Oak, Texas download, and we're so excited to have you guys on board. Thank you so much. Uh, appreciate you being a part of the Christian business concepts community. Now, today, um, you know, as Christian business leaders, recognize the fact that we are called uh and we're called to be stewards, you know, to practice good stewardship. We're supposed to be good with our time, with our talents, our resources. Uh, we need to try to do everything that we can to reflect God's purpose uh in everything that we do. Now, one of the things that I think a lot of business people and just people in general, honestly, uh struggle with is procrastination. And procrastination is just the act of delaying, you know, postponing uh doing tasks or getting certain things done. It can really hinder you in a lot of ways. It undermines your leadership and your effectiveness. It causes a lot of problems with team trust. Uh, it gives you problems uh with um your organization. It it kind of keeps you from having the impact that you could really have. Um, you know, and biblical principles such as those in Proverbs chapter six, uh, verses six through eight really urges us to be diligent, you know, to be diligent like an ant. You know, Colossians 3.23 talks about working heartily for the Lord. In other words, everything that we do, do as if we're doing for the Lord. Um and it emphasizes the importance of taking action in a very timely fashion. And so today I want to discuss some actionable strategies, I think, that can help us to overcome procrastination. Um, and we can draw on a lot of psychological insights and practical tools and some real-world applications, I think, to help us take decisive and timely action. You know, sometimes we procrastinate and then we regret that, and and and then we procrastinate and then we regret that, and then we procrastinate and then we regret that. And so we we get caught up into this horrible cycle. Uh, you know, there are some people who are are literally chronic uh procrastinators. You know, according to a study that was done back a few years ago, you know, 20 to 25 percent of adults in the world today are chronic procrastinators. Now, that's a huge number, which which led me to work on this topic for you. You know, it just it just means that those of you who listen to this podcast, there's 25% of you that are dealing with procrastination. Uh, and so we want to make sure that we we get into this and understand it so that we can do better. Uh, you know, we can accomplish more when we don't procrastinate. And all of us have struggled with procrastination at one time or another. I don't think there's anybody that's not procrastinated something or you know, tried to not do something, maybe for whatever reason. So we need to understand what procrastination is because it's really a voluntary delay of really important tasks. Uh, and and we even may know that that the potential uh for for having negative consequences because we we delayed, we know that. We we recognize it, we accept that. A lot of times it comes from either emotional discomfort or maybe a fear of failure or a lack of clarity. It's not always just laziness. You know, a lot of people think, well, people who procrastinate, they're just lazy. No, that's not it. There's a lot of reasons. Uh there's a lot of uh of psychological reasons of why people procrastinate. And uh, you know, you may notice it because you may see um you you delay a lot of important and strategic decisions. That's that's that kind of an idea that you can get the idea and understand that you're procrastinating. Uh maybe you avoid difficult conversations. That's that's another thing to look for. Um maybe you you over um overemphal over analyze, I should say, a lot of information instead of acting on the information, you just continue to analyze it. Um, you know, Ecclesiastes 11 4 says, He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. Um, you know, so the word of God is talking here about finding reasons of why not to do something. And when we procrastinate, we typically can justify it. We we typically will justify it in some way. But it comes from a lot of reasons. You know, uh Napoleon Hill, who I've read uh books by uh in my early career, uh, he said procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday. And so it's important to understand and get a hold of procrastination so that we can be better leaders. You know, on January 28th, back back in 1986, you know, most of you'll remember, if you're old enough, you'll remember that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded about 73 seconds after it launched. It killed all seven crew members. Uh it it included a teacher, Krista McCulliffe, uh, who was a high school teacher that got chosen to go on this mission. And uh we were all watching this live on TV. And uh so a lot of the engineers at NASA uh had identified some risk with the shuttle's O-ring uh seals, especially in cold weather. And they had known this back in uh as early as 1977. Now, this is 1986, but they procrastinated on redesigning those O-rings. And the reason they they they justified it was because, oh, there was budget constraints, there were launch pressures, you know, we had to hurry up and launch, we had to get things done. And in the days before the flight, despite overnight debates and a recommendation to delay due to the forecasted low temperatures, so they did talk about it. Uh, mid-level managers hesitated to escalate those to uh those concerns up to the higher ups. And the delay in implementing these fixes and then overriding this this launch, this go-ahead decision to launch, even though it was 31 degrees, so it was below freezing, it led to these O-rings uh failing. And then, of course, we had this great explosion. Uh, that's what the Rogers Commission uh their investigation highlighted. It was it was a uh a normalization of uh of deviance uh through repeated postponements. That's what their their core cause was that that they came out with. Um and then it resulted in a 32-month-long grounding of the whole shuttle program uh because of that. And so, you know, we can see that there can be some very serious consequences when we procrastinate. Uh, so there's a lot of cost when we talk about procrastination. You know, the first there's a spiritual impact, you know, for those of us who are born again, because delaying God's work can hinder the kingdom of God's impact. You know, Jesus warned uh about that when we look at the story of the talents, you know, in Matthew chapter 25, because one of them just took the talent and just buried it in the ground. He did nothing with it. He didn't do a thing with it. So, you know, it can have a very negative impact. Um, there's organizational losses, you know, you postpone decisions, it can lead to a lot of missed opportunities, uh, uh financial issues, competitive disadvantages. There's all kinds of reasons. And then you have to consider team morale, you know, indecision erodes trust. Um, and uh it can just keep us from doing what we need to do. And then it hurts our our trust and reputation that we have, and so it damages that, and and it it it can really harm our credibility as a leader, and it can damage relationships because of that as well. And so we really have to watch that, you know, and of course the big one is it can cost money, you know, when we procrastinate. You know, uh Kodak invented uh, you know, we all know about Kodak. Kodak was a great company, had been for many, many years. It was a great film company, and and it was kind of a household name Kodak was. I can remember a lot of the commercials when I was in the 70s with Kodak, even in the 60s, uh I was a young child then. But you know, Kodak invented the first digital camera back in 1975. But but because of the CEO, Kobe Chandler, who was there from 75 to 1990, and some of the other leaders like George Fisher, he was there from 93 to 2000, the company procrastinated on fully pivoting to digital imaging. They they were afraid that it would cannibalize the film business, uh, and they treated the digital as just kind of a side project rather than a core strategy. And uh this delay really allowed a lot of other competitors like Canon and Sony, they come in and they began to dominate the market. And by 2012, uh Kodak filed for bankruptcy. Its market value had gone from$31 billion in 1997 to under$200 million in 2012. So you have to be careful. It can cost you big time. Uh, it can also delay your destiny, and uh it'll cause you to miss a lot of opportunities. So why why do we as leaders, why do we as people, why do we procrastinate? Well, sometimes it it stems from internal factors and sometimes it's external factors. Um there can be a fear of failure, um, or even a fear of of judgment. Uh it can be perfectionism, uh, you know, uh seeking uh seeking seeking a flawless outcome can just completely paralyze us. Um you know I've always said perfection is the enemy of progress. If you're we're waiting, if you're waiting to to uh have perfection, uh a lot of times it'll just stop you dead in your tracks, you won't do anything because you you know you can't you don't see it as being able to be done with perfection. Uh so uh there's also um uh a lack of clarity, maybe you don't have clear priorities. Um there's a temptation of of of comfort. In other words, uh we kind of prioritize short-term comfort uh over a long-term plan that may have some discomfort. Uh so you know, James 4.17 says, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is sin. So again, we're this kind of speaks to priorities. And so a lot of times we we we we just want to be comfortable, so we we just you know procrastinate on things. And a lot of times it can be a lack of confidence. So we don't believe in ourselves, we don't believe in our abilities, and so we just you know, we just don't do it. Uh another is illness. Sometimes, you you know, during an illness, you know, we'll procrastinate to do things. And then sometimes we self-sabotage ourselves. You know, there's some people who are so afraid of success that they stop their self-I've seen people do this, I've seen salespeople do this. They are the worst enemy of the moment of their own selves because they sabotage their self to keep themselves from from reaching a higher level, because they're afraid that if they have that higher level, they'll just be knocked down to a lower level. So they self-uh sabotage their self uh to keep that from happening, and it becomes a bad cycle. So let's talk about some biblical and practical strategies to over overcome procrastination. Uh first, you there's self-awareness, there's there's what I would consider to be a mindset shift. So you've got to begin to identify the triggers. What is it that's causing you to procrastinate? Is it fear? Is it comfort? Uh what is it? You know, you know, just kind of look back and look at situations where you procrastinated and try to journal some notes and and and see why you avoided doing it or making decisions or whatever that task may have been. So maybe it was a lack of confidence. Uh, but you know, what you need to do is take a look at tools like the Eisenhower Matrix, and and we'll talk about that in a middle in a minute, but that'll help you clarify priorities. Um another thing that you can do to help self-awareness is to kind of relook at the failure. View your mistakes as a learning opportunity. So that's a mind shift shift or mindset shift. You know, you want you want to view those mistakes as learning opportunities. Uh you've got to you've got to give yourself some compassion, you know, avoid self-criticism for those past uh uh procrastinations and just start to move forward because uh that can be a tough mind uh mindset to shift to or from for some people. And and then you need to adopt a growth mindset. You you want to embrace challenges as growth opportunities. You know, a lot of people don't want to take, they they'll procrastinate because it's very challenging. But you need to change that mindset. You you need to embrace challenges as an opportunity to grow. You know, Romans 12, 3 says, For by the grace, uh by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. You know, so so you need you need to understand that you've got challenges ahead of you and use them as a growth opportunity. Uh the next strategy to use is what I call time blocking. It's kind of a time management technique so that you you kind of allocate specific times for high priorities. Uh, for example, maybe uh schedule 90-minute blocks for like strategic planning uh and make sure that you avoid all the distractions during that 90-minute period. Uh, you can try what's called the 25-minute technique, and that is you work in very focused 25-minute intervals, and then you take a five-minute break. And that keeps you from getting burnt out, but you're really focused for those 25 minutes. Uh, the other thing is you can do is set deadlines. You know, make sure that you create these, even artificial deadlines uh for yourself for open-ended tasks. For instance, you you know, you set a 48-hour window to finalize a proposal. Uh, you know, you make sure that in your mind there's an urgency there. Um, and so you want to make sure that you do that. And you can use tools like Trello. Trello is a great tool. Asana, which I'm not real familiar with. Um, there's also Google Calendar, which has a lot of great uh uh um uh things that you can do with it. Uh you can schedule tasks, it gives you some clear deadlines, you can do some reminders. So there's a lot of great tools out there. Trello, again, I've used Trello a lot. Trello's a great program. T-R-E-L-L-O Trello. Uh I'd encourage you to take and and and check that out, take a take a look at it. Uh another is prioritizing. You know, we talked about the Eisenheim matrix. So let's talk about the Eisenhower matrix. It's just basically a way to categorize the task that you have, and you categorize them by urgency and importance. So basically, you have four types of tasks. You have the urgent and important. If it's urgent and you determine if it's urgent and important, then you need to do that immediately. Uh, then it can be important but not urgent. So you got to schedule those. That, you know, that's kind of more of a long-term strategy. And then there's urgent but not important. Those are the type of things you ought to try to delegate. They're not important, but they are urgent. Um, and then there is, you know, it's not urgent and it's not important. Those uh uh types of tasks you need to just totally eliminate. So that's how the Eisenhower, uh, President Eisenhower came up with this when he was in the military. Uh, General Eisenhower did, and uh, before he became president. And so that's how he divided up his task into those four areas. And then realize there's the Pareto principle, which just says focus on 20% of the task that are going to yield you 80% of the results. Uh so for example, you know, maybe you prioritize your client negotiations over some minor uh, you know, administrative type work. And then you need to be more organized, no question. You need to be uh more organized. You know, Mahatma Gandhi said one time, action expresses prioritize uh priorities. Uh so what you're doing is expressing your priorities in your mind. You know, Mark chapter 8, verse 36 says, For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? So, you know, that scripture talks about priorities and what is our priority? You know, priorities will will reveal two things. Number one, what you believe in, and number two, what's important to you. You know, Luke 12, 34 says, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So it it it your priorities will tell you that. It'll tell you what you believe in and what's important to you. So uh that's important. Another strategy is is decision-making strategies. Uh you want to set you know some deadlines. Uh, you you want to commit to making decisions within a set time frame, either 24 hours for like minor decisions, give yourself two or three days if they're major decisions. Uh, but set those deadlines. Uh start small. You know, take take really complex decisions and try to break them down into smaller steps if possible. You know, for example, instead of delaying a hiring decision, just just start by by putting together a short list of maybe some candidates uh that you can deal with, or, or a list of of of um uh uh websites or or or recruiters that you're gonna use. You know, Proverbs 18, 15 says, an intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. So you you want to be smart about this, uh, but you you definitely you definitely want to make some kind of deadlines for the decisions that you're making. And then the next thing that you need to do is you need to have accountability partners. Um, you know, begin to have some people, share goals with some very trusted people uh or mentors who, you know, you can check in with weekly, make sure they understand what you're trying to do. You know, you can make some public commitments. You know, one of the things that I have found is in certain areas, if I have to do something that's really important and I know I could be a person that would procrastinate uh the uh on that particular thing, I will announce to myself or out loud to other people, maybe my wife or or or maybe some of my team members, so that I kind of create this external pressure on myself. Hey, I told them I was going to do it. I need to get to do it, I need to get on it and get it done. And then you want to track your progress in a lot of these things that you're trying to do. And you can use tools like Notion, Monday.com, which I use to monitor whether you've got your task completed and what the rates are. It'll tell you what your percentage of getting those things done are. And it gives you uh an ability to identify a lot of your patterns that you have if you are procrastinating. Um, and then develop a reward system. You know, celebrate those small wins. You get a report done, hey, celebrate that. Uh, you know, take an extra coffee break, uh, maybe do a team recognition, uh, just something to reward uh yourself for doing that. You know, uh Nathan and King David, when I think about them, the prophet Nathan confronted King David about his sin with Bathsheba. And he used a parable to make David recognize his wrongdoing, which led to his repentance. So there was accountability there with to Nathan, David had. And then there was Jethro and Moses. Jethro advised Moses on how to handle the burden of leadership more effectively. And, you know, he was accountable uh to uh uh Jethro, and it helped him to delegate a lot of responsibilities uh to other capable people. And then you have Elijah and King Ahab, you know, the prophet Elijah, you know, challenged uh King Ahab for abandoning the worship of the Lord, and he held him accountable to God's standards. And and so you need to have some people around you that will challenge you in in these things that you tend to be procrastinating in. And then next, uh and lastly, you want to make sure you have systems and processes. You want to implement some methodologies. You know, uh there's lots of things that you can do. You can use frameworks like a combo system to break pot projects into you know small uh manageable bytes uh that gives you some really good, consistent progress. You can have some automated reminders, you can set up alerts and things like that uh in Microsoft Teams and even in Google Calendar, you can do that. And then you want to make sure you do reviews. You know, after certain projects, you want to look for areas where there were delays. Was it because you procrastinated or somebody else procrastinated? Uh, and then that way you can identify issues. You know, when Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, he used systems. If you read the book of Nehemiah, you'll find that he had great systems in place to get that wall built, and he did it in record time. You know, Solomon did the same thing when King Solomon built the temple. You know, uh God didn't allow his dad to do it, but he had uh Solomon do it. And Solomon had a lot of systems in place to get things done, and he got it done, and it became a beautiful, beautiful structure and the home that they had decided they would build for the Lord. Um, you know, so I think it's important. You know, I I think about the the Boeing 737 crashes they had from 2018-2019. Uh, you know, they had a Lion Air that was flight 610, and then the Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, that was in 2019, and it killed 346 people. You know, it grounded the Boeing 737 Max fleet. Um, and both of those disasters were linked to a faulty maneuvering characteristics augmentation system, MCAS is what it's called, uh, and it caused uncontrollable nosedives. So Boeing had known about the problem, the design flaws. They had known about these things since 2016, but they procrastinated on the fixes to meet a lot of their production deadlines because they were trying to compete with Airbus. And the Federal Aviation Administration delayed uh a lot of what was going on after that. They delayed their production uh and they demanded stricter oversight. Um, you know, but the FAA had some issues that they had to deal with as well because they were relying completely on Boeing's self-certification uh despite despite people who had come to the forefront, they were whistleblowers and gave warnings to the FAA. So they procrastinated as well. And after the first crash, you know, Boeing and the regulators, they they they grounded the entire fleet. Um and so they they had to do that. So it's important. It's really, really important. You know, there's a person by the name of James Clear. He's an author and speaker. He's known for his work on habits and decision making and continuous improvement. And he's got a number one New York Times bestseller book, and it's called Atomic Habits. Atomic Habits. I would I would encourage you to get that book and read it. But he said you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. It's so important. I'm a very system-oriented person. I'm big on systems, and uh so I look for systems on a regular basis. Um let's talk about a few tools and resources. We've mentioned a few, but you know, if you're looking for something to help you in your productivity, look at Trello, look at Asana, A-S-A-N-A, or Notion uh for task management. Uh you know, you can you can uh read uh The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. Uh that'll help you to kind of align your work with your faith. Um The Now Habit is another great book by Neil by Neil Fiore uh for progressination strategies. He's got more. Um and then uh you can look to your community, you know, join a Christian business network like C12 for accountability and support, and then read that book I just mentioned, Atomic Habits by James Clear. Uh that's a that's a great book. Great book. And then if you're looking for training, you can enroll in some maybe some time management workshops or leadership coaching for a lot of personal support. So, so procrastination, it's a leadership liability. It is, but it can be overcome. You can overcome it through self-awareness, structured systems, proactive culture, and really by applying the strategies that we've outlined, um, you know, ranging from mind shift uh mindset shifts to prioritizations. Um as a business leader, as a as a Christian leader, you can make timely decisions. You can inspire your team and avoid those pitfalls of procrastination, which causes a lot of negative things, even tragedies. Um, and then you can begin to commit to very consistent action to drive personal and organizational success. Let Proverbs 16 3 guide you, and you know what that says. We talk about it. Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established. Well, Lord, thank you for the men and women who. Downloaded and listened to this podcast today, Lord. I pray that if anyone is struggling with procrastination, Lord, please help them. Help them to apply the principles that we've discussed today and to overcome this issue so that they can be better in their personal lives and in their professional lives, their careers. Lord, I just pray that they see the danger that procrastination brings and that this will motivate them to overcome it by what they've heard here today. And I ask this in the name of Jesus, amen and amen. Well, thanks again for listening today to today's uh Christian Business Um Concepts Podcast. And I hope you add CBC to your personal growth plan on a regular basis. Well, that's all the time we have for today. So until next time, remember, Jesus is Lord and He wants you blessed.

SPEAKER_01: 30:58

Thank you for tuning into this week's Christian Business Concepts Podcast. Go to Christian Business Concepts.com for more information and resources. Be sure to check out other podcasts that will help you take your business and your personal life to a whole new level of success.