I’ve recently turned a new leaf in life by defaulting toward action. You can read about the reasoning behind my aha moment here. But, this post addresses the antithesis of action. This post is about procrastination.
When I started making purposeful decisions to take action asap, an ugly truth started to creep out from between the floorboards. I quickly identified that I had a tendency to procrastinate on certain tasks. It took me even less time to identify where that root cause was often coming from.
I found that I often procrastinate when I don’t know exactly what I’m doing, or said another way, I hit the brakes when I’m afraid of being wrong. Ah, that’s the line. That’s the root cause. I’ve run into a task, topic, process, area of business, or whatever it is, where I don’t know exactly what to do next. So, I wait. I hold off to think about what I should do. I spend time trying to research what I should do. In the worst case scenarios, I don’t even want to ask someone for help because I’m afraid of the judgment. “Shouldn’t you know this?” That’s what I think the hands at the other end of the keyboard are going to type out. I’m afraid, and this fear brings progress and action to a grinding halt. I’m waiting, researching, thinking, pausing… all things that are adding time to something that likely could be pushed forward.
How can we combat this fear based procrastination? Here’s a few of the techniques I’ve started to work on:
First off, I try to remind myself that everyone started somewhere. I don’t have to know everything. If I come to a roadblock, and I don’t know what to do next, find that person who does know and ask them for assistance. Sometimes all you need is confirmation of your ideas, or a push in the right direction to get you off and running again.
Next, I’ve also come to realize (through step 1) that often, I don’t know exactly what to do next and the truth is, no one else knows any better than I do. We often think that others must have all the answers, when in reality they don’t. The worst situation is when I’ve waited to ask someone for their thoughts, only to discover they don’t know any better than I do, and now I’m back to square one and two days behind.
Lastly, I humble myself to acknowledge that I don’t have to do everything on my own. Perfect isn’t the goal. Just get the task/writing/content as far as I can, then share to gather thoughts and input from others. People will either confirm that I’m on the right track or they will give advice for restructure. Either way, I’m getting inspiration to push forward.
Remember perfect is the enemy of done. And you’ll never know everything, and that’s okay. So when you’re full steam ahead on a project, and you come to a blocker because you don’t have the answers, ask for help, take a stab at a best bet, and share what you have so far. Bias toward action.