Your questions answered: Procrastination

Did I spend enough time concentrating on things that have meaning? Or did I allow myself to get preoccupied with the things that really weren't that important? That's just kind of an interesting isn't it interesting how we all have different take on the world. And this is what you're inviting us think of the perspective like what lens Am I looking at this topic of procrastination? And how am I trying different ways of looking at it helped me shift my relationship to the topic of, in this case, procrastination. Hello, and welcome to unset at work I'm your host, Catherine Stagg messy and executive and team coach interested in the unsaid conversations that we don't have at work, and some other episodes day where we pick up a conundrum that was sent to us by me, and see if we can be helpful offering our perspective. This week's topic is procrastination. And even if you don't identify as a procrastinator, and this episode might change that, as it did for me, you probably know someone who is so this episode is for all of us. I think we often think overcoming procrastination is a matter of just discipline and hard work. But you'll see from this conversation, it can go so much deeper. As with Episode 35, when we had our first answering of your challenges, listener challenge, this is a conversation with my friends and coach extraordinaire Rona Steinberg, who calls herself the outloud coach. And as you spend time with her in this episode, you'll see just how true that is. She brings a much more reflective angle style coaching conversation, which I think is a perfect counterbalance to my action packed style. We kick off with a very useful coaching tool around perspective that'll help you get unstuck on this topic or anything else, we also touched on the need to consider how our perspective influences our relationships with the thing in front of us and you know, our task or project that how procrastination might be a signal of weather conditions, and that perhaps the purpose and the importance of project connecting the purpose can actually help in making even the mundane tasks are manageable and fulfilling. I hope this show has you wanting to have your own work conundrum answered. The link is in the show notes if you'd like to drop us your details of what it is that you're struggling with and how you'd like us to help. And let's for the moment, go see what we can learn about the many layers and phases of procrastination. Likely to read this one out Catherine or would you like to read this one? I'll read it out this time. Thank you. So we've called this one procrastination. Not a simple topic. So I listened to says for years now my biggest struggle with work is procrastination and getting distracted. It's usually when I'm on my own starting a new project. How do you focus on tasks that are boring? But necessary? That's a huge one, isn't it? Yeah, I have a long list here of like, whatever, maybe in perhaps this and to me check this and yeah. And I think it's a great question that many of us can relate to. Yeah, I wouldn't call myself a procrastinator, but I can procrastinate, because it feels that the person identifies quite strongly with being a procrastinator. And there's a little piece there about it's usually, so the circumstances are important here. So they're not saying I always procrastinate at work. No, but it's usually when they're on their own. And when they're starting a new project. So something about that's important to know about, as we always say the circumstances or the circumstances, but the way we look at the circumstances are within our remit. So that might be just a sort of shorthand way of all we need to change some perspective here around what we regard as the in the detail response to this lack of systems and processes are like the tactical response. And then there's you zoom out. And then there's the sort of the Eagle Eye discussion of this. I'm wondering whether it might be fun for us to explore the idea of how do we work with perspective, just because it's something I know that we both? Yes, I know I do. I often like to help clients reframe or do an exercise around shifting perspective. You and I are speaking. And when I first looked at this issue on my own at home, I looked at it from a completely different perspective. But now I'm speaking to use something else has come in. So that in itself is interesting. But I'll start with the idea of working with perspective. So I think when we are working with perspective, and what we mean by that is really just how we look at something, we can have the same issue and we can look at it in a different way. And that can change the way we feel about it, and then can change the way the things that we do about it. So the first one is really important to identify what the topic is, and I feel Why the topic here is procrastination, we might say, to our client well is procrastination around new projects just so that we have something concrete to think about. So we've got a new project. And we're procrastinating on the thought, so called boring tasks. So we would in this exercise, identify, how do I feel about the tasks, they are boring. That is a perspective. So I would really have the client really drop into boring boredom, feel it in their bodies really get to know about a boring topic, or a boring task, just so we know what boring feels like. That's the perspective that we're standing in, we might use the room that we're in, or colors or tastes or the sensations to shift perspective. So I know you know this exercise, Catherine. So what might be another perspective that we could sit in, you would ask me one of my favorites, which usually freaks people out, but I still love it, because it has a big impact is the dying fly. sounds horrible. So again, this is about occupying the perspective first, and then exploring the topic afterwards. But the the perspective is that it's helpful to lie on the floor, on your back, arms and legs in the air as if you were a dying fly, and you're not dead, you're dying. So it is the sort of last moments that have a fly on the window ledge. And that sense of my time is coming to an end as a little fly. I know where you're heading. And I think the embodiment of that helps as well as shifting your perspective shifting your body to feel that it's helpful. Usually, that perspective has a big reframe on the meaning, and the size and the importance of this thing, right that we've made usually quite big, because it's been brought up for conversation. That's one of my favorite disruptive ones. It's actually really interesting you say that, because I've got a different perspective on your perspective. So what I'm hearing from you, actually, how important is this? When you're dying? How important is that boring task? What I heard was, when you're dying, you want to know that your life has had some meaning. So actually, for me, what that brought up was, Wow, I allow the boring, the so called boring task to override the importance of this new project. And it was the new project that had meaning for me. Did I spend enough time concentrating on things that had meaning? Or did I allow myself to get preoccupied with the things that really weren't that important? So that's just kind of an interesting, isn't it? Interesting how we all have different tape on the wall. And this is what you're inviting us think of the perspective like what lens Am I looking at this topic of procrastination? And how am I trying different ways of looking at it helped me shift my relationship to the topic of, in this case, procrastination. There are all sorts of ways to work with perspective. So you could jump so we've got we've had the boring is boring. We've had the dying fly boring. What would you add? I out of the corner of my eye, I have a beautiful garden. So I might suggest beautiful garden, beautiful garden represents what comes to mind, virtuousness beauty. Well, for me, it's beauty. Meaning, when I go into my garden, I'm lifted out of whatever funk I'm in, and it takes me to an altogether more beautiful place. And a place that's really important to me. And it fills me up, it makes me feel alive. My garden just reminds me of how beautiful the world is. I get very fascinated with the flowers. And so I guess I'm kind of moving towards something with this topic around this beautiful new project, finding the meaning behind the project, and not allowing the tedious tasks to get you in a funk and so that they are running the show. So a lot about helping this particular person, get connected to why they're why why are they doing this project in the first place? What's important about the project because we know that if you can make that meaning big, the boring, mundane tasks become not that important, and we can get them done. Yeah, I think those are both great examples of perspectives. And we're not suggesting listeners that either of those are, you know, to rent any of them. They're just like fully expect Ever since exactly, and you can try him on and see what becomes available, and you just keep kind of moving through. But we're not mandating you to have to look at it through this lens in the future, it creates more spaciousness around the topic that we're looking for. So you can have more choice in how you respond actually. And after once, you know, you can try this exercise out for yourself. And it is quite a fun thing to do, and be quite imaginative and creative about it and use things that are meaningful for you. And once you've gathered those perspectives, it's identify which of those feels the most resonant for you, you know, dead, fly, feels resonant, go towards that and think about, okay, what are the things I could do if I'm in the dead fly perspective for pelvis, boring tasks? So I'll swing that one back to you, Catherine, if you fly perspective, your perspective, if you're in that don't fly perspective, and you were brainstorming around, okay, I've got these boring but necessary tasks to complete. How would you approach them? From the dead fly perspective or dying flight perspective? Not Dead Yet? How would I brainstorm there's something about the size of which it takes up feels a bit whack a mole for me, I would just like bash them out. Like they're just tasks, get them out the way. Don't allow them to consume my vision, minimize the size in my heart in my energy, and like I'm holding them that the man attains a site that the time it takes to do them, but how they invade my life. I think it would reduce Yeah, right. Right. Right. So I'm hearing that you would just something about separating yourself from the emotional bit and just get on with the towel. Get it off that desk? Yeah, he's boring but necessary. So we can't not do them. But just get out of it. And what would your garden perspective add to the brainstorm? Wow, I love that question. Because it's not an obvious answer. What comes up for me is making it beautiful, making that boring task useful. So I'm imagining a pile. I mean, I've got a few documents on the table that I've got to get through. So I might arrange those, you know, beautiful way, there's something about arranging for me a range of, yes, arranging things so that I bring order to chaos, what can happen is I get overwhelmed by the muddle, I get overwhelmed by the all there's so much to do, and I can't get through it all. And it's also difficult. But if I separate it all out, and make it harmonious and then do the task in an organized way, I already feel better in my body. There's a harmony to nature, it kind of settles, it's when you said beauty I was thinking colored posted notes. Yes. Now I'm talking fun. Yeah. It's like, how do you bring the beauty into the Yeah, we're assuming it's office work of some sorts, we are, aren't we, I sort of feel like creating space to do. Now I'm doing this in this space, all of these things in this space. And I've got a chunk of time in which to do it. And I'm going to do this very beautifully. That's how I work with these awkward little things. Well, I think those are both great examples of how a different perspective and something might dial you into different options, which is what we're trying to give the listener, the longer range of options that you could think of, to help you in the situation that you've that you probably haven't thought of. Absolutely. And I think understanding what those tasks are for, again, if we can go back to the previous listener, around raising your awareness accepting Oh, yeah, I'm a bit bored. And it is a bit difficult. And I do incline towards procrastination. It's, it's, it's a normal, normalize that for yourself. Give yourself a little virtual hug. It might look easy, but they're not. It's okay to feel I don't want to do this. And then find a way to make it okay for yourself in service of that bigger purpose, which is developing this beautiful new project. What came to me is well, as I was thinking about this topic, I find that procrastination and perfectionism are siblings. Oh, gosh, yes, go points. Absolutely. I wonder how much the listener sees is related. We've done the exercise around helping you shift perspective. I'd love to talk about some other angles on this. And one of them's like, what's really going on? And I, in my experience there, there is something on perfectionism. Because really, whatever you're doing isn't good enough by some measure that you've made up this won't be approved this won't be good enough. They weren't like it, but it's not what expect it's expected of me and my level and insert variety critical voices. Yeah. I love that. I think it was going to be up It nerdy now and quote Voltaire Fico. He said, perfect is the enemy of good. I've heard that before. I didn't know there was him. There you go every day is a learning day. perfect is the enemy of good. In other words, we avoid because we think it's not good enough. Yeah, so we don't do it at all. So the philosophy here is give things a try. Get it out there. Well, in the spirit of reflection of the listeners to go there anyone else who suffers as procrastination? Is the reflection work around against who standards? am I measuring my work? That's big onion to peel? Yeah. Yeah, I think it starts off with my boss. And it's like, Well, is it really your boss? Or was it your highly critical mother, in my case, highly critical mother who I then internalized the voice and then nothing's ever good enough. Even when I have 1000 data points coming from outside, I'm talking more when I was working in corporate partner was like, yeah, no, bad. Catherine, you could have done better that voice. Does that have the effect of making you procrastinate? Or is it that when you do the task, it doesn't feel good enough? Or is it both? In my case, things like public speaking, and in particular, and creating and doing the prep around the public speaking, creating the slide deck, and I would kick that down the line so far, and which is not my normal behavior? So it's specific things with me that I would procrastinate on? Because the sense was, I could never do it in a way that I wasn't filled with shame with worth what I create. I don't even open the box is that just feels like I think shame. Yeah, that's interesting, this shame and the this shame, and there, I will fail by standards that I have somehow internalized that understand where they came from. I think it's so interesting that you identify public speaking, as that sort of Touch Paper issue that feels really difficult to think that's very common for people that it feels so exposing. And if you're mentioning shame, you know that you're so visible, you're so see that, I guess that's the Jeopardy piece is not beavering away at your desk where only you and maybe a few others can see your potential fail. But the idea of being witnessed by so many eyes, yeah, it's very confronting for people. It is a we can assume our listener has a project that has some public face to it at some point, let's assume Okay, let's assume I don't know if we can. It's this is the invitation. Is there something on perfectionism getting caught up in the leap of procrastination? Question mark? We don't know. We don't know. But very possibly, yes. Very. Yeah. The other thing I would say, that came to me, and I'm new to this field, but I have recently had some clients who have been diagnosed with ADHD. I don't have a lot of experience of working with people with ADHD. And procrastination is huge. It's part of we're not diagnosing. But again, there's a question if you wanted to go through a checklist of what's really going on. There are loads of resources on the internet. There's a podcast episode on this, if you want to listen to it. Maybe it's easy. Absolutely not. But I think those of us Gen Xers and older that diagnosis wasn't around. Yeah, it's not the old days. It hasn't been normalized for us. So the people I work with are late 20s, early 30s. For him that's more well known about knowing about and is it an ear? Are you onto Okay, fine. But First Gen X's. It's like, what I can write this thought there was me. Right, right. So I think it's really important that you mentioned that because it's certainly something to bear in mind respect, not just for people who might suffer from ADHD, if indeed it is a suffer from condition. The language is Yeah, yeah, the language is so important. But also, for other people who might be working with people who have ADHD, or any other what are we what are we describing? Quality? Might don't know what's the right terminology? And what if your colleague is looks like they're procrastinating and in empathy and understanding what's going on with him? All right, yeah, maybe that's the right word, understanding what might be going on for someone. Yeah, I got a great lens. I hadn't even thought about that. I was really listening. Thinking of this for the listeners submission. Yeah. But we work with people who procrastinate and which can be seemingly incredibly frustrating. Yes. And I can imagine, I've sat there going quite judgy going, Oh, for heaven's sake, it's not that frickin hard. Just do it. Like why are you why are you missing? Why? Just get it just yeah. Just stop it. Because it's easy for me. Yeah, just stop it and move on. So yeah, I think there's that sort of lovely expansion of this topic into how do we be with people who, by our definition, I'm procrastinating and what how do we I find a compassionate lens on what might be going on for them. The thing about this topic is, it can be treated in a way that feels quite dismissive. As you say, why can't you just get on with it? For goodness sake, just do your homework, just do your essay starts really early, doesn't it? And yet, there's that we can all meet profound resistance in ourselves around completing certain tasks, or not even tasks that might be what we see is big work in the world, anything, this resistance that we all might meet in ourselves, and it's a huge topic, isn't it? It's a really big thing. What do you procrastinate about? Yeah, what's it? What's my big procrastinator? I don't know whether it's something I procrastinate about, because I might be using a different language. But I think there are certain roles, certain jobs that I avoid, because they overwhelm me. So for example, I identify myself as someone who really doesn't understand numbers. And if we're talking about ADHD, I might even go so far as to say I have a real problem understanding numbers. It has always been there for me, I just don't get them. I don't remote. People say to me, Well, how much does something cost? I have no idea. And they think I'm being flippant, but I really have no idea. Because if you show me a number I can't doesn't mean anything to me. Yeah, it doesn't stick in your brain. Interesting, right? So anything that has an N, I'm looking at my desk, now feverishly looking at something with a number. So anything that is related to numbers creates a lot of overwhelm for me, so tax return, likes tricky to keep things Uber simple. Oh, doing packages. Coach school, they said, try and have packages for your clients. And it's like, not at all, I just have to charge for the hour because otherwise I just don't get it and I get it. Yeah, really, really hard for me. So I would say when I start to explore that, it's like, Well, no wonder I procrastinate about those things. It has emotional. I'm scared of that. Yeah, I think you've really, you've got it. What's the stuff going on? Like is procrastination is perhaps a signal of some heavy emotion in there that we don't want to be with some real discomfort. That's very real. There needs to be acknowledged and seen. Firstly, we're just by ourselves for ourselves. Absolutely. Yeah. I guess that's what I mean about, we tend to sort of take big words like procrastinate is a big word, literally. And we tie it up in a bow we say all procrastination topic. How do we deal with procrastinate and then, but it actually has so many layers of meaning for people? Yeah. What might be going on underneath the surface, like anything? Like all of these topics, feel like I'm learning about myself and procrastination, and this conversation, the ways in which I might procrastinate, although I wouldn't identify in that way in the shame around that, like, it feels shameful for me, given when I read a podcast, and I have quite a bit character, but I can't stand I hate I'm terrified of standing up on stage. Terrified is a big word, but I would go far away to avoid doing it. That's our procrastination. But if you've got a gig to do that I would avoid doing the prep than the planning and the design and everything we procrastinate on that you're so gifted at. The sad thing about that is you have a real talent. For public speaking, we sort of call it public speaking, which, by the way, is what you're doing right now. I know that Miss scrn irony of it, like I decided love, but there's something about a public stage that what's the difference for you? It's conversational. I don't have to prepare slides. I don't have to have a coherent thread. I didn't have to stand up and just talk at people for 2040 60 minutes. And it like a monologue. Right? And yet, you know, there is help that compete. And that there are tools and methodology Yes. for managing how to create some interesting way like so I would assume our listener has Googled top tips for procrastinating and gotten to tips like eat your broccoli first. All that kind of stuff, and yet are still Yeah. So I think there's there's an interesting way of breaking the theme down into what are the tips and assuming that you've tried those and they haven't worked and what's going underneath what's really going on? Yeah, and can you sit in your discomfort to find out? Yeah, well, it's a rich topic very much. So. Any final thoughts on that? I think the only final thought on that is to do with the public speaking piece and to know that There is a there's a way of being with public speaking, which doesn't involve tips and tricks. Yes, I really recommend doing some deep work around what it is that's getting in your way. And reconnecting with, what is it that you want to communicate to the world. Because once we understand the bigness around what we want to say to the world, the fears that the very real fears and valid fears get outweighed by your big purpose. So thanks again to our listener for sending in their challenge around procrastination. I hope you feel that you can take something from this and for the rest of us, that we've learned a little bit more about how we all procrastinate and dopes in ways even if we didn't call it that, and maybe some empathy for those around us who we judge as procrastinating. Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you've enjoyed it. And if you did, you're not alone. Many of the listeners who subscribe leave positive reviews, I think we have the last count about 34 five star reviews across apple and Spotify. A review that I liked recently is from Villa Fraser. That's what the person is called. And what they say is a conversation in this podcast is Frank and rail. Two things vital and finding your way around. Katherine shares her vulnerability and learnings in a warm and professional way and gets the most out of her guest. Great to keep you motivated and connected with what matters to you. Go and listen and find your way. So thank you for the phrase and for that. If you want to join this community of listeners, please subscribe and leave us a review on Apple or the podcast homepage. Know your feedback really helps me improve the show and reach more listeners just like you ready takes a minute. And so there thank you for your support. And until next time, this is your woman signing off