Putting Off Your Work in the World

Procrastination is the opposite of paying attention. If you want to stop procrastinating you have to learn to pay attention. Procrastination is not a character flaw and it’s not a personality trait you are born with. It’s a learned behavior. You taught it to yourself. This is good news because it means you can teach yourself something else. Having something on your to do list that you don’t feel like doing is a golden opportunity to learn this new skill.

Notice what you’re thinking about a nagging task on your list. When you think “I don’t know how to do that” it creates a feeling of confusion. Confusion leads to spinning and inaction. Once you’ve put it off so long that you feel pressure, you think “I have to get this done no matter what” which makes you feel determined which leads to completion. You keep creating evidence that you are a person who “works best” under pressure. And you really believe it. It’s not true. You are someone who is practicing putting things off and creating unnecessary stress in your life. And make no mistake, procrastination and last-minute pressure lead to a lot of incompletes.

There are a lot of reasons we put things off—confusion, fear of not doing it perfectly, fear of failing, self-doubt. We have feelings about our to do list that lead to action or inaction. I teach modern emotional management where my clients get authority over their own brains. They learn to pay attention to what they are thinking and feeling. It starts there. There is a part of you that is begging for your attention. Don’t delay your work in the world. Learn to pay attention to your own thoughts and then retrain your brain to think on purpose.