 So I want to read a question relating to procrastination and I'm reading this one because I had a few similar type of questions about this issue. In my book on procrastination I talk about only committing to small pieces of work on a daily basis and this question kind of it's from somebody who who tried this idea but ran into problems. So let me just read the question first of all and then I'll explain the solution to this type of procrastination that this person is experiencing. So it's just I get your idea that small amounts of effort are key to overcome procrastination. Okay and that's exactly true so we want to be consciously telling ourselves only making small commitments not working worrying about finishing projects just the next step is all we focus on. However when there's external pressure of expectation I can't seem to overcome procrastination. I know these people expect me to put in a lot of work and that it will be it must be of high quality. So should my approach be different when I'm under external pressure? Now what I'm going to say to this is there's a little bit more to the question but let me just address that part first. Should my approach be different when I'm under all this external pressure which will be a little bit different to like a personal project where you have much more control over and really the only person you're accountable to is yourself? Well the short answer is not really it's there's no difference okay the approach is the same in terms of only committing to small amounts of work and the other thing I talk about is having consequences for yourself when you don't show up to work when you say you will but there's no difference in the approach whether it's only yourself you're you're holding yourself that's going to hold you accountable or it's other people that are going to be expecting things of you and the reason for this is with something where you have all these external pressures and people have all these expectations of you the truth is okay there's going to be and especially if there's like a high quality of work you're expected to produce am I going to have to put in a lot of work in this one part of this can can rationally say yes probably the work the quality of work I produce here will be higher if I put in more work and that's rational but you know the same holds true also for a personal project you're working on you know if you're working on setting up a side business or something for yourself or working on a passion project isn't it also true there that the amount of work you put in will likely lead to a better outcome okay so there's not really much difference in that what I'm really saying here is we're all aware that the amount of work I put in towards anything I'm working on whether it be external accountability involved or not the amount of work we put in is going to lead to a better outcome you see my whole approach with procrastination is I completely accept that I'm not trying to deny that that's the case when I tell people to only commit the small amounts of work and try to be consistent with that and also to have these consequences and boundaries with your work the difference here and this is the whole thing about procrastination is that that's rational this idea that yes more work equals probably a higher outcome or a better end product but with procrastination what we're dealing with is an irrational we could say or a much more emotional or a part of us that needs a lot more compassion rather than just a cold hard logical rational approach to something it's the part of me that says I don't want to do this even though rationally it will be a good idea but did a lot of this it's the part that says I don't want to do it that we have to work with so what we're doing with is it's almost as if you can have two mindsets simultaneously here one is kind of saying of course more work here would probably be a good thing at the same time there's another part to me that has no interest in doing it at all and I have to start to talk to it in a way that's going to allow it to come out of its defensive posture and move forward towards that maybe more rational goal okay so procrastination it's it's there's the the rational the cold hard rational solution here isn't going to make any difference it's all about how we talk to the part that's resistant that doesn't want to step forward that it maybe is a bit afraid or overwhelmed by this whole thing that's what makes all the difference and this is why we only talk to ourselves in terms of small steps at a time because this part over here wants us to do all extra more more more and this part is like I don't want to do anything at all so we're trying to convince this part to get on board and telling this part this the part that's afraid that it has to do huge amounts of work is going to make it completely climb up and get defensive and uncooperative entirely so there's a little bit extra here on this question it says you say to only commit the small amounts of work at a time however I know this simply won't cut it I'll have to put in massive amounts of work to stay on their good side okay so exactly what we're talking about there we have an intention and openness to doing a lot of work right but at the same time as you're holding that intention we have to talk to this afraid part in a way that's going to make it come forward and come along with this in this in this goal it also says here while I stopped making plans based on your advice the planning didn't help me overcome procrastination anyway I can't get the thoughts of work out of my mind okay so I do talk about how planning is not very effective in terms of overcoming procrastination the final thing it says here it says even when I'm not working I'm thinking about about it constantly and I'm I'm not even doing any of the work so please help now this thing about planning planning in terms of traditional the traditional way that people plan is not helpful in terms of procrastination because what we typically do is we get out a piece of paper and we write down I'm going to work from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and then I'm going to work here and then I'm going to work here and I'm going to do a little bit more work here and then I'll finish off with work here maybe or something like that but it's work work work work work is is where we see the focus when we're planning in this fashion now what we want to start doing is I'm not against planning per se because you'll notice even though you're not making the plans your mind even if you're not writing it down your mind in the background is still actively planning work work work I have to do this much work there's so much work to do I have to work more so it's already it's just doing it sort of without the piece of paper it's just mentally planning so what we do is we we actively plan but we schedule out where are the boundaries with work what are the other emotional needs I need to meet and I have those as our set intentions literally plan out time and space for those things so that those things outside of work do not feel threatened by our the size of our goal that we have okay so that's something that will really help with the cooperation here so with the main point with this one is this whole thing of look external accountability you don't understand I really have to do the work I have to do so much work and that's the reality of my situation that's true also for personal projects the more work we do the better we get on with them right no one is in denial of that fact here the question is that's almost irrelevant entirely for procrastination procrastination is how do I talk to the part of myself that is uncooperative and one of the biggest things is to only take on small things at a time don't commit to finishing the project only commit to starting it and working on your next step and then finally to have a very clear boundaries one final thing a really useful thing I'll say about boundaries boundaries is very strict about when I'm stepping away from my work or when am I doing other things that are not work related one of the things that's really helpful with that is let's say you do have this external accountability and you have you know you're thinking to yourself I do really have a lot of work I need to do here that's absolutely fine so if that is the case when you're planning some time away from work you could even reduce that amount of time away from work doing other things mean your other emotional needs but the thing about it is you have to schedule something for those things that are not work related you have to do it deliberately and consciously right they can't be an afterthought that maybe you'll get to at some point so whereas on a typical day where there's less external accountability you might say okay I'm giving myself four hours of time tonight to do nothing to do no work now if it's the case you're under all this pressure you might say well I'm only going to give myself an hour of time away from work here potentially now that's maybe not too sustainable over the long term and I would hope that you will get back to your normal way of doing things where you're giving yourself much more time away from work but in these high pressure scenarios like this intense scenarios like this it's okay to set aside and actively write down briefer periods of time away from work maybe rest or relaxation time but do it consciously and be very strict with implementing what you've committed to in terms of that right it's not so much the time that you're giving your other emotional needs it's do your other emotional needs trust you to stick with what you agreed to give them because this is the development of self-trust and this is you having really strict boundaries so you can still have super strict boundaries with work even if you're taking on more work but you have to be strict with the boundaries so I don't know if that will make sense to many people who haven't watched any of my other stuff on this or maybe read my book on it I hope so but this is a question I get quite a lot of and I want you to just kind of start to see that the whole idea of external accountability shouldn't really change your approach to personal productivity all that much because nothing really changes we always want to do our best in terms of our productivity it's just a matter of talking to the part of us that isn't on board with that quite often for good reasons there's not on board with that sometimes it can be about you know self-protective sort of thing about procrastination can be a way to avoid judgment it can also be a way for us to say well look we can rationalize after a disappointment let's say you do hand in this work that you've you've done and it's judged very harshly if you can say it to yourself in that situation well look I didn't really do that much work on it and in that case it's not really a reflection of your ability so therefore your self-worth is not implicated in that so procrastination can be a way for us to protect ourselves like that but the main thing again is just stick to conscious boundaries and only focus on doing the next achievable small step and then see where you are and look to another subsequent small commitment because that's how the nervous system is cooperative and will be cooperative when you're working towards one of these goals even if it's a big one guys I'll leave it there for now I hope that's useful information about overcoming procrastination even in really stressful situations like this and I'll see you again soon in the next video take care bye