135. Procrastination tips for moms

Procrastination is an avoidant strategy and there are so many layers to it, why we do it, how to redirect it, how to accept it, and so on. It is also something almost everyone does and something that can cause a lot of shame, especially for moms What is procrastination? It is putting something off for later. We all do it, everday. We put off phone calls and chores and errands. So how do we know if we simply PRIORITIZING our time and energy of it we are procrastinating? Why we procrastinate There is a reason that deep down it is preferable to us to put off the task. Some reasons might include overwhelm, avoidance, all or nothing perfectionism, or we deep down don't want to do it. How the brain responds to pending tasks The brain has three jobs: seek pleasure, avoid pain, stay efficient. When we have the thought about a task we 'should' do the brain responds inline with this criteria - will it produce pleasure or pain? does it require a lot of energy? Procrastination is not always a bad thing Sometimes procrastinating tasks can be a benefit. There are situations where it allows us to do better work, use the sense of urgency for energy, discover our true priorities, uncover some identity clutter we might have, and have less anxiety in the present. Three ways procrastination can be a problem: 1. Because of what we do instead of the 'task'. We most likley turn to non-essential, short-term gratification activities. These often become our 'bad habits'. 2. Because of what is NOT getting done. Whether we feel like this moves us further away from our 'ideal' self (and make sure you know what that is!), piles up the chores, or becomes a way we do our life. Episode 129 on Expectation Overwhelm Get the Live you VISION worksheets Get the Live your VALUES worksheets Get the Life on Purpose Workbook 3. Because of what we think it means about us. As we procrastinate we start to identify as a procrastinator (and usually this is loaded with shame and judgement). Then we start to live into this limiting identiy we have of ourselves. Three questions to help you deal with procrastination in your day Why do I want to avoid this task? Is this task important to my personal values and vision? Is this task a prioritiy TODAY? If yes, ask: what is one small step I can do to get started? If no, schedule it on the calendar and listen to episode 150 called Do You Trust Yourself to Show Up For You. Full transcript of the episode (unedited) Hey friends, it's Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and life coach from simple on purpose.ca Welcome to the simple on purpose podcast. This is a place where I share ideas that I hope will inspire you to slow down, think about what matters to you your personal values, and do the work of showing up well for that. Today, I wanted to talk about a topic that I have struggled with. I know a lot of us this is something I've googled myself on Pinterest over the years. And I think it's also a topic we can have a lot of shame around. And I'm I know, we're just going to scratch the surface on this on procrastination, because procrastination is an avoidance strategy. And there's so many layers to it, why we do it, how to redirect it, and accept it, and so on. So I hope that this episode will give you more understanding of what's happening mentally give you some more awareness, some more grace around it. And then I have at the end, some questions that are going to help you in the moment to deal with procrastination. What is procrastination, it is putting things off, I'll do it later. Or more accurately, it's a form of saying I won't do it right now. It's not gonna happen right now. And this is an issue that comes up in coaching because we have a stigma attached to it. Like somehow, if we are a person who procrastinates we're less of a quality person, we're less of an adult, we're less together. And I just want to bust that myth, everyone procrastinates whether or not it's blatant whether or not they label themselves, or shame themselves for it, everyone procrastinates like, if you're sitting in your living room, staring at the coffee cup on the coffee table, and you think, oh, I'll put that back in the kitchen later. Or I'll call this person back after work. Or I'll do the laundry later tonight. Or I'm gonna have lunch in a little bit. I'm just going to finish this up. And really, how often do we have a thought about a task that we need to do? Stop what we're doing and follow that task all the way to completion? Right, that actually wouldn't make us that efficient. If we kept stopping what we were doing to do whatever the next thing is that comes into our minds. So it kind of makes you wonder, is this prioritizing how we spend our time and energy? Or is this procrastination? What's the difference? When does it go from like triage being all of our life tasks to procrastination? I think a real helpful thing can be to start out with why we procrastinate. And if we're asking ourselves, why am I putting off this task, there is a way that it is somehow preferable that we put off this task. So let's just stop and sit with that for a minute, without judging ourselves. Because there's a real reason in there. A common one is overwhelm, I don't know where to start, it's going to take so long, this is such a huge task. Another one is all or nothing thinking about how it has to look how big of a task, it's going to be that it has to be perfect, perfectionism can definitely fall into that category. Another one is, we're not really motivated, there can be so many reasons why we don't feel like it. And if we're just gonna wait around to feel like it might not get done. Another one that can be really sneaky is deep down, we actually really don't want to whether we're doing it to avoid conflict that it could cause maybe conflict with relationships, money, or time, or whether we're doing it to preserve our autonomy or to make a statement, or we don't believe in ourselves or it feels actually helpless. There's actual reason deep down our subconscious beliefs that we don't want to do it. And they're not matching our conscious effort to get the thing done. What's happening on a larger scale is what our brain is doing with the notion, Oh, I should go do this thing. And this thing needs to get done. And what does our brain do with that? How does our brain respond to the idea that there's something we should be going to do? Our brain has three jobs, this is called the motivational triad. And the three jobs are to seek pleasure, avoid pain and be efficient. So if a task comes up that we think we should get done, is it pleasurable because our brain wants to opt for the more pleasurable thing our brain wants to opt for the things that gets dopamine from, and we train our brain on what sources of dopamine to turn to, which is a whole other topic, we probably haven't trained our brain to look to decluttering or getting the dishes done as a way that we feel rewarded and get a hit of dopamine. The other thing that's happening is our brain wants to avoid pain. So when we go to do this task, how does it feel when we're doing it? Are we going to encounter negative feelings when we have to be doing this task? Probably right? We don't want how it's going to make us feel. And then that third job, it has to be efficient. It does not want to use up the energy, it wants to stay on habits stay on autopilot. It doesn't want to do the hard work to figure things out and think about how to break things down into smaller tasks. So if these are tasks you've never found pleasure, and if these are tasks you're not looking forward to, if these are tasks that take a lot of effort. If these are tasks that deep down you actually don't want, then it makes sense that your brain is saying No, thanks. No thanks. I have a lot of excuses, a lot of doubts, a lot of reasons we shouldn't go do that thing. And we reconcile this we reconcile our brain saying No thanks. With this conscious ideal that we have on what we should be doing. And we meet in the middle brain says no, we're like, Yeah, but we got to. So Fine. Let's do it later. Let's have a rain check. I took a minute to just laugh at myself that I'm making this episode on procrastination. Because this podcast recording the podcast each week is the one thing I always procrastinate on. I've worked on procrastination in lots of areas of my life, like laundry dishes, making phone calls, doing exercise, but this podcast, there's something for me to learn here. I spent the morning writing my notes up for this podcast. And then instead of hitting record hours earlier, I plucked my eyebrows, I ate some nuts. On the deck. I organized some stuff in my bedroom, made a coffee went on Instagram, I listened to a podcast, I went on Instagram and listen to a podcast. Now it's three o'clock, here I am, I'm recording it. So this is something that I'm going to be digging into personally something that I'm going to coach myself on. But here's the question that can throw people for a loop when they bring procrastination to me, how is it a bad thing, you might stigmatize yourself and judge yourself that you are a procrastinator, but is the action of procrastinating actually making your life worse, it's not always a bad thing. I think about the blog post I've written over the years in the episodes that I record. And I will start drafting up the topic, maybe a week in advance, and writing a few notes on that. And then I just leave it there. I give myself time to think about it, work out the details. And then I come back to it. There can be a lot said for just taking all of the time available and coming back to things after thinking about them for but sometimes I think I do better work when I procrastinate. And some people think they do better work when they have a deadline....