Strategies to Stop Procrastinating in Business and Life

 In this week’s episode, Emily Merrell and Lexie Smith break down the cycles of procrastination and how it can impact your goals. They break down the reasons for procrastination and offer strategies to overcome the cycle to stop procrastinating in your business and life.

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

• Different examples of how procrastination appears in business and life
• How procrastination can impact your goals
• The root causes of procrastination
• Tips on how to realize you’re procrastinating
• Strategies to stop procrastinating in business and life
• Em & Lex’s self-reflections on how they operate or procrastinate
• And more!

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Learn more about Six Degrees Society and THEPRBAR inc.

Transcript

Emily Merrell  

What began as a pandemic side hustle has blossomed into a vibrant online community crafted by coaches or coaches.

Lexie Smith  

So when we're not immersed in our coaching community on circle, we're busy managing our other businesses navigating the ups and downs of life. And of course, recording this podcast.

Emily Merrell  

This is where we dive deep into epic conversations about life, business coaching, and everything in between. So are you ready, Lex?

Lexie Smith  

I'm set and let's coach

Lexie Smith  

y'all are in for a treat to day with us gotta say I gotta say, on

Emily Merrell  

a scale of one to melty, how melty Are you?

Lexie Smith  

I think my pas just answered that actually is I couldn't formulate what number I wanted.

Emily Merrell  

You were like, absorbed into the asphalt kind of melty,

Lexie Smith  

melty, it's been a male TDA I've had a few coaching calls. You've probably had 18 calls yourself. We just got off a co working session and I feel I feel I'm not alone today. Meaning I feel like everyone's had a little bit of melty. Yeah,

Emily Merrell  

I feel like during the end of the week, I'm kind of like The Little Engine That Could and then I'm The Little Engine that wants to like, fight

Lexie Smith  

that wants to sleep. I in life lately though. To our credit. I feel like your life is always 100 million miles an hour. Mine isn't but I just finished hosting my parents. And then last night I threw a party for my husband with my in laws and my parents and you know, the whole not sleeping with my baby. Not sleeping because of my baby thing. Anyways, I feel like there are reasons for me being naughty. Also, if you're watching on YouTube, you're in for a real hair treat me today.

Emily Merrell  

I interview do watch on YouTube, please let us know that you're watching thing on YouTube. I would just appreciate that. And if you are so I don't know if I told you this. What this doesn't even matter. It's not even it's a non story I'm about to tell. So my son he'll look at us in the morning or when he's chewing and he's like blissed out. And he'll go like this and you kind of remain blissed out. Like he's like enjoying his food. He feels

Lexie Smith  

like happy. He's just

Emily Merrell  

like, in bliss, in bliss. And he'll just go like this to you back and forth. And smile, kind of like a Cheshire Cat. That's how I feel right now. I'm like, blissed out slash exhausted. Ash, Lynn's

Lexie Smith  

Word of the Week is happy. When she's eating. She goes, happy, happy, happy. I'm like, Oh, I get it. I'm happy when I eat too.

Emily Merrell  

It's so true. It's like sleeping. I'm happy here. Let me let me demonstrate you This is another happy

Lexie Smith  

happy. Um, so you know, it's very fitting that we're talking and highlighting our melty brain. Because I also feel like this has been we're in this season of melty brain and well, okay, multi brain adjacency I don't know multi brain transition here at comm so what is like multi brain not getting stuff done? What is not getting stuff done? Procrastination.

Emily Merrell  

Beautiful. And I'm gonna give you a little a little quote that I've heard and you've probably heard this yourself. procrastinate.

Lexie Smith  

If you have little ears nearby.

Emily Merrell  

You know, I'm working. Everything out. Procrastination is maths. And at the end, you're just Fe

Lexie Smith  

work. Just say it.

Emily Merrell  

Just is like masturbation and you're just talking yourself.

Lexie Smith  

isn't comfortable the second time? Lexi's like,

Emily Merrell  

I can't believe you said both of those words in one sentence or her face is is very red.

Lexie Smith  

We have a quick squirrel. Emily and I Well Emily just finished the corn of what is the actual series called Court of Thorns and Roses. Yeah, yeah. Which is very smart, which I think we talked about on another podcast. Anyways, I was really in a very smoky scene last night and I was by myself getting super uncomfortable. And I'm like, when did I become a prude? Anyways, that was an unnecessary

Emily Merrell  

and yeah, that's sorry. Everyone knows that. But I do want to know who's finished it because Lexie has told me about this for a year and I just finished it in a month and I think this is a great example Axi a great transition of when you are committed to something. You want to actually fulfill what you are committed too and so when I am committed to reading, and I've been warned by my mom about this, she was like don't bring books on your honeymoon, your father ignored me our whole honeymoon. And I brought books and I ignored my husband the whole honeymoon. But I have an addictive personality in very specific ways. Books in binging and binging series like those are two things. And then also you've seen this over the course of the last few seasons. If I get hooked on like a particular hobby, for example, rock climbing or core power yoga where Alexei is going to make me take a shot. I really commit to the thing. In the same vein, when I don't want to do something, doing it, it I will do everything in my power to not do the thing.

Lexie Smith  

When you think about procrastination, regardless of who you are, if you have an addictive personality like Emily or not so much, there's usually a reason behind why you're procrastinating. And they can generally be funneled the reasons can generally be funneled into a fear of failing at the task. category one, number two overwhelm, or number three lack of motivation or just not deeming it important, right. So if something's not super, super important, then you might not be as motivated. So I think one of the first things to do if you're someone who has been procrastinating and you'd like to move past procrastination, is take a step back and think about which of those three buckets do I fit in? Am I procrastinating? Because I'm scared, I'm anxious, right? Maybe you've been procrastinating on launching a course for a year now? Is it because you're afraid it's gonna fail? Or that's bucket one, are you afraid or overwhelmed, because there's still so much to do that. Rather than, you know, do it, we're just gonna get caught in overwhelm, analysis, paralysis, or three. If you're really really deeply honest with yourself, it's not something you're super motivated to do, you're not in love with the core. So it's easy to kind of procrastinate and set aside.

Emily Merrell  

And it's, it's so funny how you described all those, those different feelings because I felt a combination of a lot of those sometimes. I don't know, I've as my as I become an adult, I've definitely become less of a procrastinator. But oftentimes, eating the frog or like doing the hard thing first, if I don't do it first thing in the morning, I'm not going to do it during that day. And so that even goes back to like other episodes we've talked about, about knowing flow, in that I know myself, and then I will deem it not as important and then I'm not clear enough. And I, I don't have enough focus time and I'll make make an excuse and then it'll be pushed off to another day if it's not in this very, very particular time. But I was going to share in college I in high school, I was like the ultimate procrastinator. I would write all of my papers the night before, in like a lucid state at midnight. Like it was insane. And I would get A's. The ones that I planned for in advance the ones that I pre wrote the ones that I batched failed miserably. So I am curious, and I want to I want to hear about your experience, Lex, but my mom also reinforced growing up this idea that she's like, Oh, I always, you know, do my best work the night before. So I also had permission from someone to work in that kind of high frequency kinetic state.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, I think it's an it's an interesting thing to think about. And as I'm reflecting in real time, I'm motivated. I resonate a lot to the lack of motivation as it relates to task aversion. Task aversion, meaning if I don't enjoy the task, I have never been someone who has really procrastinated in my career, which is a good thing. I guess. I like my career. That's not true. I procrastinate with accounting because I hate accounting, and to the test, test, and testing college and whatnot. I studied the night before and got A's and why did I study the night before? I hated studying. I didn't like it right? So for me it was while I still got the job done. Um, it definitely is that that category three for me as I self reflect, Hey everyone, Lex here. and M. And if you haven't heard, we did something pretty darn cool.

Emily Merrell  

We sure did. We launched a completely free community built specifically for coaches. Say

Lexie Smith  

it again for the people in the back.

Emily Merrell  

We launched a free community for coaches. Tell them quickly who it's for and what we're doing inside Lex.

Lexie Smith  

Sure thing so it's for anyone from the coaching curious to side hustlers to coaches ready to scale and through the virtual platform that we've built, we've created a safe and fun space where we learn, launch, grow, connect ideas, collaborate, and evolve together. Nailed

Emily Merrell  

it, Lex. Now while it's free, you must apply in order to gain a free membership, you know, so we can make sure everyone inside is awesome, like us. Apply

Lexie Smith  

today at Ready Set Coach community.com.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, this is a this is an interesting for self reflection. But I do think that there is an opportunity for people to evolve just because you studied the night before or I wrote tests the night before doesn't mean that's how we hope to or want to be operating now. And we've talked the, again, in many episodes about Patchwork, or we've talked about focus. And I think these are tools that younger versions of self weren't necessarily equipped with the we're so we're so fortunate now there's a lot more access to manage, you know, project management tools. And like, I don't know, I didn't know how to manage a load before the way that I feel like now I can be like, Oh, this is not a high priority, this is a high priority, this needs to be done. And then it's usually the task is that don't, to your point, don't aren't a high priority, but still need to be done that get left into this void of OSHA, I need to know this. And then I don't know about you, Lex, but when I am in that place where you know, it's there. But you're also exhausted and you don't want to do it. It feels like someone is just squeezing my shoulders. Like I feel guilt.

Lexie Smith  

And I'm thinking, I think, where I procrastinate the most are on tasks like okay, I'm reflecting guys, I have different categories. And I'm curious those listening if you relate to. So I just had reflected that I have a lot of task inversion related to any kind of workload. But when it comes to household chores, or things beyond work, I actually resonate more with overwhelm, I think, actually. Because of me making a mountain out of a molehill or me feeling like it's going to take so much longer than it actually takes when in reality, doing the laundry might only take me 15 minutes in my brain, it feels like such this big task. And to that point, I can then deprioritize so I'm not even answering your question, really. But I don't know if I feel like someone's literally pulling my shoulders or guilt. But I think there's, let's let's think about that. Why would someone feel what would trigger the guilt that you feel when you're procrastinating? For me, it's

Emily Merrell  

this feeling like being in this timezone I'm in, I'm in Colorado, so I'm behind the East Coast, so I can feel guilty of like being slower to respond, I wake up with texts or emails. And I have to like really work hard just not to respond to them immediately, because they've already had two hours of work. And then on the flip side, anyone that I work with in California is finishing their day, and I've already finished my day. So I then can feel guilt, like oh, no, I didn't deliver what I was supposed to deliver in that time. So I always feel like people are waiting on me. It's a me thing, not a them thing. And also, I'll just say, I think that it's usually when there's another person involved in the picture.

Lexie Smith  

Okay, so I'm gonna have you coach yourself into the answer to this of the three buckets be brought up fear of failure, overwhelming lack of motivation? Which bucket does that fit? Failure? You don't want to let other people down? Triggers guilt, which triggers

Emily Merrell  

skills. And then and then and then it feels like, well, maybe I'll just fail. And then if I fail, then people won't rely on me. And then they'll just not stop asking me to do stuff.

Lexie Smith  

Well, you brought this up recently with me, we were finishing a module and I know it's something that you are putting off and you're like, I feel so guilty, or I feel like you're gonna be mad at me or I feel like you were procrastinating doing it maybe a little bit because a little bit of a diversion. It's not something you love to do. But also, you probably didn't want me to hate it, and then you have to redo it or let me down.

Emily Merrell  

Ya know, all of those things. And it's, it is interesting that like Lex and I, when we met, I had always wanted to create a group. And one of my biggest resistance of creating a group was the modules. And was the idea of creating modules and being like, well, I have nothing to teach people. And I have nothing interesting. And I you know, one of my strengths is I can write pretty well and I can come up with content but beautifying things. It's something that it overwhelms me so much, in fact that now when I write my newsletters, I write them in a Google Doc. And so I'm not distracted by making things pretty. And so when I, if I write them for ReadySet, coach or for six degrees, I'll give them to LAX, and I'll make them pretty, or I'll give them to my assistant, and I'll make them pretty, so I don't have to, like spiral. And that's a spiral for me.

Lexie Smith  

Okay, so what you just really demonstrated there was moving past something that you were doing your overwhelm, and your procrastination and coming up with a solution. So we've kind of talked about the why behind procrastination. It's frickin normal guys, we've all every single human on this earth has, at some point, procrastinated on something I will stand proudly behind that. So what are the solutions? How do we get ourselves to stop procrastinating? Emily, do you want to tee us up? Yeah,

Emily Merrell  

I'll share one of my favorite marriages kind of based on this conversation. So you guys heard that I love reading. And when I'm reading a good book, that's literally the whole entire day, all I can think about is when can I read again. And I'm so glad that I finished this series, because now it's like, my brain can clear. But what I've done is I've held it hostage. And so in that, I will have to do the hard thing to reap the reward. And it's interesting, because in hindsight, I actually did. It's habit stacking is what that is. And it's something that I used to do at the gym. When I lived in New York City, I was only allowed to work, watch my study, vampire TV show, or The Vampire Diaries. If anyone's watched that, I was only able to watch it in the gym on the treadmill. And I was not allowed to watch it at home or in bed. So it meant that I went to the gym more frequently.

Lexie Smith  

So you're rewarding yourself.

Emily Merrell  

So it's rewarding myself. Exactly. So for example, again, I, I, as I read this series for the last few months, was being able to do the hard thing. And then I could give myself a 30 minute break and sit and read.

Lexie Smith  

So for Emily, something that works. And also if you're on YouTube, this is probably my fourth hairdo of this episode. Again, go to YouTube, the

Emily Merrell  

layers are just off guys.

Lexie Smith  

I did shower today. So my hair is rough. Yeah, well, boo you Your hair looks great. Um, okay. So what works for Emily is setting up rewards. And I think that's really beautiful and works well with someone who can be really self motivated and has a fair amount of ambition, gumption, not the word I'm looking for. But yes, you have that too, has like self control, or like self accountability. Yeah, self accountability, to some extent. So you could also set up a reward system with an accountability buddy, if you're someone who doesn't feel like you can hold yourself to that standard. Another tactic that I want to go over a way to move past overwhelm, that I have found really successful with people we've coached in myself, is to sit down and break down and make a plan for the task. So what this looks like, first and foremost, is getting out a pen and a piece of paper and writing down. What are the steps, the manageable steps that need to happen for you to achieve something. So let's take, for example, scheduling your next email newsletter. Okay, maybe I'm procrastinating on that. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to sit down, I'm going to write out what are the steps that need to happen in order for that to take place? Step one is I need to think of a topic. Step two, I need to open up ConvertKit and write the topic step three, I need to send it Okay. Now we're going to put a little micro micro bullet point under each of those on tips or techniques or resources that I might have available to help me do that. So for coming up with a topic, maybe it's turning to chat, GBT that could be a resource, or can I revisit some old content from the gram? Or can I look into a presentation I made once that's a tool and a resource? Number two going into ConvertKit? Maybe what's going to help me do that is time blocking and putting that on my calendar and scheduling? Well, maybe for me what works is announcing to the world that they can expect a newsletter to come from me next Tuesday. Now I have public accountability. The last step I want you to take note of here is putting a rough time estimate. How long do I really think that will take me with all the tools and resources and let's say I identify it'll take 30 minutes. Now all of a sudden I know I am not making this task out to be something bigger or something that it's not. I know it's going to be 30 minutes in my life. And I literally have a step by step plan of how to do it.

Emily Merrell  

That's so brilliant Lex, and I think it's, it's so true in terms of like moving past overwhelm, so many people will, myself included, will be like, Oh, no, it's going to be so much work. And then you kind of sift through the work and what the reality of it is, like, oh, it's actually not that much work, oh, the venue is taking care of the food, this place is taking care of that. Like, if you're planning an event, that's an area that I see people get really overwhelmed. But the checklist approach and writing out the small micro tasks, and also acknowledging that it's only going to take this much time is really helpful. And I'll also also note, the other thing that you said about seeking outside help or inspiration. So like turning to say, chat, GPT or turning to your your work wife, or turning to your business coach, I find that those individuals that are rooting for your success are really helpful in helping you move forward.

Lexie Smith  

So those are some great tools to get started, I want to take us back for a second to the three primary categories. Because again, the first step here is to really reflect on what's triggering the procrastination, Is it fear of failure, or something related to that, is it overwhelmed? Or is it I'm just not motivated? Maybe there's a task ID version, right? So that's step one. Now, what if we determine that it's fear, or perfectionism? Emily, I'd love for you to share some strategies for overcoming fear of failure and perfectionism.

Emily Merrell  

Well, I think the biggest thing, too, is the value of progress over perfection in coaching, especially so many we see this actually, day after day with all of our coaches, they're like, sorry, I can't put my offer out. It's not perfect yet, or it's not ready yet, or the pictures aren't pretty enough for the the offers not fully Matt wordsmith the way that we want it to be. And so often it's putting yourself out there and a lot of people simultaneously will then complain, complain about scarcity, or they'll they'll, they'll know the scarcity in their life. Yet the common theme, the common denominator here is, is you, if you're the one who is, as I said earlier, effing yourself, you are the one literally holding yourself back from success. So I mean, some of our favorite strategies is to test and iterate in real time to put something out there. And then if you fail, you fail fast, and you change, you reevaluate. And you, you, you rise to the occasion. I think the other thing too, is, and we see this, and we've probably mentioned this 9 million and a half times, but we see people test something, and then retract it really quickly. So like I tested it, and no one reacted to it. So it's over. And I no one liked the thing that I was doing. But in reality, no one saw the thing that you were doing. So again, giving yourself space and time to experiment and, and get feedback

Lexie Smith  

to other strategies that I like to use, they're not mine. So credit to whoever came up with them once upon a time, one playing out the worst case scenario. So literally, like writing now are saying what happens? If my newsletter is imperfect? What will happen? Okay, let's play that up together. Um, well, maybe people will unsubscribe. Okay, what will happen with people unsubscribe, my list will get smaller. What happens if your list gets smaller? That just does right? Like maybe there's less opportunity? Well, what's the positive of that? Maybe you're weeding out more of your wrong customers? Or maybe you then say, yeah, that sucked. My List shrunk by 10. But now I'm going to do something proactive and grow it. So when you start to play out the worst case scenario, around business, it usually lands somewhere that you can, you can move past. Beyond that. The other thing is, will this matter? Five years from now? Will this matter? If it's not going to matter five years from now? Why are you spending your energy and time worrying? Right, that's another again, credit to whoever came up with that. But those are kind of two little mindset things that I like to play out. And if the answer is five years, no one's gonna remember this. Then just do the damn thing. Right?

Emily Merrell  

Lax you're singing to the right choir here. One of the My Favorite Things I love to remind people tell me about a time in college when you did an all nighter and remind me what was on the test you studied for. Do you remember? Do you remember the content of

Lexie Smith  

the Spanish tests? No, I don't remember. Yeah, but we thought that

Emily Merrell  

it was the end of the world. We thought that if I didn't pass this grade, I'm not going to get fill in the blank, a job, a car, I'm not going to be successful. All of these little feral failure spirals that we can talk ourselves into. When in reality, like, I've glimmers of those, those times, have no idea what I was studying for. I don't remember what the what the content was. And yet I felt so self important and like I was the only being in the world that mattered at that moment. And in reality, it was just a speck in your life.

Lexie Smith  

Oh, show. So here's your homework. What we want you to do is think of first and foremost honestly, what is the task you've been procrastinating on? Then we want you to put it in a bucket. Why are you procrastinating really honest with yourself? are you fearful of it? Are you overwhelmed? Are you really not motivated to do it? Are you I really don't see a support once you really hate the task. Once you have a bucket, it becomes a lot easier to come up with a plan or a strategy on how to move past. We gave you a few today. There's a ton more hop on Google. Ask your fellow coaches. Ask us in the community if you're not in the community during the community, and we can help brainstorm together

Emily Merrell  

as always beautiful Hallmark Lex and I love by the

Lexie Smith  

way when you me

Emily Merrell  

yummy. Happy happy happy happy happy, happy happy. We'll see you then.

Lexie Smith  

Oh yeah, until next time on The ready buddy said coach, the body does get asked.

Emily Merrell  

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