It can be so easy to procrastinate doing everyday things and self-sabotage ourselves from making progress on things we want to do.
Just last week, I had to catch and conquer my own temptation towards procrastination, even though I work as a leadership coach who actively helps people address procrastination as part of what I do. I caught myself wanting to reschedule doing research on a topic that was the next-step of a project while working with my own coach. I had to ask myself, “Am I procrastinating this right now by trying to reschedule it?”

Conquering procrastination is not a one-time event, so, if we really want to experience life at its fullest, then we need to embrace practical, simple tools and strategies to thwart procrastination when it appears in our lives. Remember, once this moment has passed, it is gone, never to return again. Time is always fleeting, and sometimes we find ourselves stuck, watching it pass us by.

This is why I didn’t procrastinate reading Risa Williams’ new book, The Procrastination Playbook: How to Catch Sneaky Forms of Procrastination Before They Catch You (Jessica Kingsley Books). As a keen reader myself of ALL three of Risa’s other books, The Ultimate Toolkit Book Series, and having enjoyed the practical tools she provides within these, I was excited about the opportunity to learn about the various ways that procrastination sneaks up on us in everyday life.

Risa Williams is a psychotherapist, an award-wining book author, and an expert in getting things done. I asked her a few questions about procrastination and how it can make us feel stuck in our tracks while working on our goals.

What are the most obvious forms of procrastination that you hear people talking about?

First of all, just to normalize this, everyone procrastinates. We procrastinate little types of things, we procrastinate bigger things, but procrastination is something we all do in different ways. So, I wrote this book so that we can start to peel back the layers of shame people tend to feel about procrastination, and look at it through a lighter, and, hopefully, more practical perspective. It’s a normal thing that happens to us from time to time. The most common types of procrastination that I tend to hear about from people are problems getting started with projects, trouble prioritizing or organizing the steps towards completing goals, and avoiding doing tasks that don’t seem like any fun for them to do. This last one is probably the most obvious type of procrastination because you know when you’re doing it, and you can easily admit you’re procrastinating, and everyone around you can tell you are procrastinating, too. You might even say to people, “Yep! I’m avoiding doing this because I really don’t want to do it!” That’s why it’s the easiest form to catch yourself doing…because it’s visible!

What are some of the “sneaky” forms of procrastination that we might not know we’re doing?

In the book, I talk about subtler types of procrastination that tend to sneak up on us. These catch us off-guard because we don’t always notice the signs that we’re doing them until we’re way deep in it. For example, “waiting for motivation” is a sneaky type of procrastination. You have a plan to start the project in your head, but you get stuck waiting for the “right time” to start it. Only, this sometimes stretches on way longer than you think. Sometimes, even for years! And the problem is, we don’t really admit to ourselves that we’re stuck in procrastination during this time but we’re losing our sense of passing time related to the project. We go into a kind of chronic “time blindness” with the whole thing where time is passing more slowly inside our heads than it is on the outside in real life.

Other sneaky types of procrastination can be things like getting busy working on too many unrelated tasks, while never moving yourself forward with the one task that you need to do. In fact, with many of the people I work with, they often become “overly” busy when they’re procrastinating. This can be one of the “procrastination warning signs” you may notice in yourself, which I talk about in the book. We all have little cues that we’re starting to procrastinate, they’re different for each person, and in the book, I ask people to start to become more “aware” of these little signs, so we can call them out as they’re starting to happen. Calling procrastination out in the early stages helps you become aware of what you’re doing. And this awareness really changes what we choose to do next.

In the Playbook, you link the relation between stress, procrastination and levels of motivation. How does this work?

When we’re at a high level of stress, our executive functioning skills can become impaired. And our executive functions include things like our ability to make decisions, organize tasks, initiate tasks, remember things, and regulate our emotions. So, you can see how when we’re feeling stressed, we then have trouble figuring anything out, and we can easily find ourselves stuck in procrastination. Our brains can feel “jammed up” in this way when the stress is running high.

That’s why one of the key factors I talk about in the book is learning how to manage everyday stress. When we can bring down our stress more frequently throughout the day, we can tap into those executive functioning skills again. We can suddenly turn on the parts of our brain that help us start the first step of a task, make decisions, and organize our time again.

Regulating your stress each day is so important to being able to get things done. There are many ways to do this; you have to figure out what works for your own unique body and brain. Some people learn to take “time buffer breaks” when the stress is high, other people do meditation or breathwork, a lot of people find light exercise or walking is helpful in reducing stress. Even if all you can think of to do is check in with how your body is feeling more consistently, this can help you learn to regulate your stress, too.

After reading your book, I recognised a subtle form of “task avoidance procrastination” that frequently attempts to take root in my life. And are there any ways I can tackle this when it starts to happen?

Usually, when we’re avoiding a task repeatedly, it’s not the whole task that is making us feel stuck. It’s one particularly un-fun part of the task that’s making us feel stuck. There is a stressful “piece” of the task that is making us not want to do the entire task.

So, what you could do is to write out the list of steps to complete task on paper and rate each step as “low, mid or high” intensity for you to do (see: The Task Intensity Meter in Risa’s Ultimate Time Management Toolkit). When we can find that high-stress part of the task, and identify it, and acknowledge it, we can start to move ourselves forward.

Then, we can ask ourselves, is there an easier step I can start with just to get myself moving a little? What is the easiest step I can do now that won’t feel so hard to complete? Because, once you start moving by taking one tiny little step, your motivation will also start to kick in. Then, you can eventually tackle the hardest part of the task that you’re avoiding.

But first, you have to break down the task, label it, acknowledge the hard part, and then pick an easy first step forward. I have a lot of worksheets in the book that can help you do this when you’re feeling stuck. I wrote the book in a way so that it would be easy to navigate when you’re feeling “jammed up” and “overwhelmed.” Because I know what it feels like when you’re trying to read a self-help book and you’re completely overwhelmed. You need simple, easy tools, that you can try without having to work too hard to do them. And hopefully, that’s what I have provided in this book.

What would you say to those who feel trapped by procrastination, who know that it is unhelpful but struggle to really live free from it?

A lot of the time, it’s not just procrastination that’s making us feel stuck, it can also be shame, guilt, and perfectionism lurking underneath the surface, too. So, remember to be kind to yourself, practice being really gentle with yourself as you work your way through these intense emotions. Soothe yourself, encourage yourself, show compassion for yourself. Even just acknowledging that a task in front of you is feeling hard for you to do is a way to show kindness towards yourself. Ease into those hard parts of the task slowly, by telling yourself kind words of encouragement.

And know that small steps really do add up! You just have to find the first tiny one to take. The first step out of procrastination is often the hardest part, once you take it, you will often find your strength again to keep moving forward. I really hope the book helps you figure out what that first easy step forward is for you.

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So, before you scroll on or jump to something else, what are you going to do with this the next time procrastination surfaces? What will your next small step forward be?

Most importantly, don’t procrastinate reading The Procrastination Playbook, if you want a little help out of whichever form of procrastination you find yourself in next.

Check out Risa Williams’ new book, The Procrastination Playbook for Adults with ADHD: How to Catch Sneaky Forms of Procrastination Before They Catch You on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or at risawilliams.com.