How to Stop Procrastinating

Zack Greenfield • August 8, 2022

Are you having trouble getting something done that you're just procrastinating about? We all do that. Sometimes myself included and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and I got two kids and I've seen them procrastinate to get their chores done. On today's talk, I'm gonna give you some hacks that you can do two day to start cutting through the things that you're avoiding and getting some progress done. So let's go over it. 

We all have things that we avoid doing or that we don't like doing. And we tend to procrastinate on those tasks. They could be fitness, life stuff, relationship stuff, or, you know, business stuff, and specifically marketing things. Right. But let's just bake it, break it down to like some of the common things that everybody procrastinates about. So we can frame it up and talk about how to get through those, those things really much more easily with, you know, less resistance and more effectiveness. So let's start with laundry. It's kind of a funny one, but everybody I talk to seems to hate doing laundry and everybody seems to, um, you know, procrastinate doing it, but more than anything, it backs up. And the reason I use that example on this video today is because laundry is so visual, right? So it's like a problem that starts small. 

And the more you procrastinate, the bigger, the problem literally gets like the pile of laundry just starts growing, growing the hamper fills up, you know, and then suddenly it's SA the entire Saturday morning to catch up with it. And here's the thing about laundry. Now, most people don't like doing it. Some of us, you know, certainly probably enjoy it, cuz it's a break from other things, but the deal with it is, and this is where I see my kids and many others struggle with it is that in our minds we actually make the task into a bigger thing than it really is. And here's what I do to reprogram my brand remap my perspective because a lot of times procrastination isn't necessarily real. Like the task is not really that much of a pain in the butt and it's really not that hard. And it's probably also not outside of our capabilities to do it. 

Like we all can fold laundry and we all can push the buttons on the washing machine. And you know, I mean, those are we're it's within our, you know, ability to get it done, but we still procrastinate. So one of the things I do is on tasks like that, that I know I have to get done. The first thing I like to do is time myself on the task and that resets my perspective about what it really is, what really is involved in getting it done. So on laundry, I've found that I can fold a medium size load of laundry in about seven to 10 minutes. So that means that I know that as a fact, because I time myself, I did it myself. It's an indisputable number for me. So now my view of that is while folding a little laundry is a seven minute problem and it changes the way you look at it because if you build up these tasks that you're avoiding into gigantic problems, like in your mind, you're like, oh, it's gonna take an hour to do the laundry. 

And I just don't have an hour and I've gotta do this. That, and it's really just false. You know, it's just fake news because it doesn't take an hour to do laundry. The machine actually does the laundry. You know, it cleans it for you. And then your part of it is like fold it and maybe put it away. All of which is like a 10 minute deal. So it's not real to think that it's a gigantic thing to do one load of laundry. It's not an hour, it's not an hour and a half. It's not gonna take up your whole evening. It's 10 minutes. You just have to show up when the buzzer goes off, right? It's not a big deal, but you don't know that. And your perspective is warped if you don't time yourself. So my first piece of advice is UN repetitive tasks in your life that you tend to avoid could be laundry, could be mowing. 

The lawn, could be, you know, anything time yourself and actually determine what the real impact is. Not the imagined dramatic impact that you're probably building it up to be. Now here's the second thing I like to do on stuff like that. And reason I use the example of laundry is it builds up, right? Well, lots of things build up. If we procrastinate, right projects at work, relationship issues, our fitness gets worse and worse every day that we don't do something with our bodies, right? Things build up that we ignore. And there's just, that's just, I guess, the nature of the universe. So one of the best things to do with things that build up into bigger problems is start biting at them regularly so that they don't build up. Right? And then the problem can't get big, which is, you know, it's kind of an interesting deal. 

It's like the bigger the problem gets, the more likely we are to ignore it. The bigger the problem gets, the more likely we are to ignore it. So that the, the next suggestion I have, and this is what I do is kind of cut everything real early so that it don't start to build up. So that folding, the laundry is a really small task. So here's what I do. I say laundry specifically, and this is a metaphor for many things is maybe a daily or every other day thing. So those of you out there that are deferring stuff to like, I'm gonna do laundry on Friday, I'm gonna do laundry on Saturday. Don't because by that time it's a gigantic thing and it may take an hour cuz you got three or four loads and each one is 10 minutes and that's 30, 40 F 45 minutes and you gotta put it away. 

So maybe then it is an hour and it's, and it's kind of built up into a bigger thing. But if you just do a load, like a small load or a medium load, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while you're cooking dinner, folding, it is five minutes putting it to back in the drawer as you, you know, finish your evening is another two minutes and then Saturday rolls around and there is no laundry because it, it didn't build up until a Saturday morning thing. So biting it stuff regularly that has a tendency to build up is a much better hack for that. It should just incorporate that into the daily or every other day type routine. That's how fitness works, right? You don't not work out for a year and then go to the gym for 24 hours and make up for months of no exercise. That's like totally insane. 

We all know that doesn't work. Right? But that also doesn't work in other areas of our life to continue to like keep control of something, whether it's your physical fitness or your laundry or other things you're procrastinating about regular consistency always went. And that's the thing I'm always saying about marketing also. That's kind of why this conversation ties back, not procrastinating to promote your business is a huge part of running your business, waiting a month to promote your business waiting a month, to build that website waiting a month to launch that advertising campaign waiting two weeks to think about the right email to send is time wasted and therefore money wasted being regular and being consistent and jumping on things right away and doing it as like part of a little routine, five minutes, a day, 10 minutes a day for laundry an hour a day to promote my business. 

At the end of the week, you've invested five hours in marketing your business. Your laundry is done and you can enjoy your weekend. Right? So break things down, put 'em into your schedule every day, time yourself on the tasks that you avoid and see how well you do, because I know you're gonna be surprised. Go ahead and like this video, take these suggestions and do me the humor of trying what I said. And I think you'll be surprised. Go ahead and subscribe because I'd love to see you on the next video as well. And I hope you crush it out there.
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