Yes, I found myself procrastinating about writing a blog post about procrastination. It makes sense, right?

After giving birth to my gorgeous second daughter, Indiana Mae, seven months ago, I admit that I’ve had my hands full. But I started taking on work again mid February. And it is now mid May and I’m only now starting to work on my business again – rather than just in it. This blog post is the first step!

I attended a business workshop last night about ‘Overcoming Procrastination’ (shout out to Cynthia Painter from ‘Create Action Now‘ who led the workshop!*), and it made me acknowledge and accept that I have, in fact, been procrastinating about getting my blog and e-newsletter back underway. As a content marketer, I know the importance of keeping these going – and although I could say that life is crazy with two little girls, a business, and running a household, I can’t actually say that I haven’t had the time to get back into the swing of things. I was just making excuses or distracting myself with important things like…you know, Facebook. Or starting a second business…*ahem* Jamberry…

But it’s time to change things around – and I thought I’d kickstart with the topic of procrastination since many of you are best friends with this state of mind. Sure, the fact you may procrastinate about preparing blogs or writing web copy does help my business – but I’d like to help you out on a more personal level by sharing some of the key points I learnt last night!

I’m not going to replicate Cynthia’s fabulous presentation, but here are my main takeaways –

So what are you procrastinating about? It’s probably a task that creates some discomfort or lack of enjoyment, right? However, rather than putting off that task…and the time never arriving to take action – we should actually just ‘eat those brussel sprouts first’ so that it’s out of the way. We’ll then find ourselves being much more relaxed for the rest of the day without experiencing this sense of dread hanging over us.

Some strategies for handling procrastination include:

• Scheduling in work, rest and play into your day – but schedule in the rest and play parts first so you have something to look forward to!
• Collecting your thoughts and gaining clarity on exactly what you want to achieve by actioning the task.
• Not being afraid to say ‘no’ if the task is actually for someone else.
• Planning and acting on the high value important items (even if they seem scariest) – and procrastinating about the low value items!
• Giving yourself rewards for completing those tasks (i.e. I have a Bellabox parcel waiting for me unopened right now, but I’m going to finish this blog post first!)
• Outsourcing if you can!
• Setting a timer so you know you must tackle the task during the allocated time.
• Using the 3 gets – get all resources, get in the state of mind, and get rid of distractions.

Well, look at that! I completed my first blog post-baby and it wasn’t so scary! Now to tackle the two other blog ideas I had…but first – my reward!!

What are you procrastinating about? I hope these tips help you out!

Until next time,

Leanne 

*Please note: I am not receiving any compensation by featuring Cynthia in today’s blog post. I’m simply inspired from the workshop last night! But if you would like to find out more, you can visit her website here – www.createactionnow.com