 We're aiming for 30 minutes as a baseline for your productivity every day because for many of us when we struggle with procrastination Our baseline for effort is zero many days will go by when I don't do anything I have zero hours done We're just raising that up to a new threshold a new lower threshold, which is 30 minutes At least every day now is going by and I'm doing something towards my goal in this Hey there, it's David. I have a question. I'm on procrastination and I'm going to answer a question here from a subscriber to to my online course on procrastination and As you may have known as you may know about now in my procrastination approach is quite different to many of the other approaches that are out there and It's really not about pushing yourself hard all the time It's this it's a mentality of actually know let me just put in some healthy boundaries with this Set myself as a priority work on myself esteem do some inner work on myself And then the work will come and there are practical things you can do in terms of scheduling your work and things like that That I talk about in detail in the course but this is a question from Jenny and Jenny is talking about she's recently taken the course She's determined to change her perception of work away from this have to mindset that I talk about in the course Which is toxic to motivation have to have to have to need to most most most all the time Changing the language is a part of the course that I talk about into from away from have to into choose to want to and It's already had an effect and She agrees with the approach that I'm using however. She says I struggle in seeing half an hour as a win Okay, so by that what I mean is in in the course in my approach to Procrastination I Emphasize well, what is our biggest hurdle? What's our biggest obstacle and For many of us it's the feeling of being overwhelmed I time so overwhelmed. I don't know where to begin and our nervous system goes into this We've all heard it a fight or a flight Response of the nervous system, but we're procrastination. It's freeze. It just freezes it gets so overwhelmed Okay, our nervous system is telling sending this signal. This is too much. This is too much I don't know where to start with this and then it would be freeze so I Tell people look only focus never tell yourself you're going to do three hours of work or four hours of work or these Mammoth long sessions only ever tell your nervous system To commit to doing 30 minutes at a time Now you may well end up doing more than 30 minutes But you only consciously ever commit to doing 30 minutes because that's a conversation what your nervous system You're having when that's happening You're trying to can you to take the side of the nervous system. You're trying to say look I hear you We're only doing this easy step this next easy step and then The whole point of this is that that will make it much easier for you to move, you know Off the couch into work or to actually start this thing. I Also tell people if at the end of the 30 minutes you're struggling with it or anything like that you stop Okay, you stop and you and you go and do something else But Jenny says here that she's struggling to to see that the half hour of work that she has put in as a positive thing She's currently studying for a test to get into university She's constantly thinking that a half an hour of work Won't be enough Even though as I've pointed out I Wouldn't do anything if I am for longer hours So do you have any tips on still feeling bad when I'm not studying after having completed the 30 minutes? Yeah Yeah so I bet Jenny You are very motivated by this and by the goal I know that you're motivated by this and I know that you want to do well in this 100% So it's not a question of wanting because I know consciously that you do want to do well in this The issue is always what can I get my nervous system to agree to? Okay, now over time if you just stick with this plan of Small steps small steps over it's very very hard for us to perceive this But a consistent small efforts over a long enough Frame of time leads to enormous benefits down the road Okay, what we don't want to have is no effort no effort no effort huge effort no effort no Like inconsistently died like these huge spikes in productivity and huge long periods of lows in our productivity There's many reasons for that momentum psychological momentum is one of them. I've talked about in the past But it's I get what your where your question is coming from here because it is hard for us to perceive 30 minutes consistently as as Going to make a difference But that's only because we can't perceive it in the short term if you stick with this philosophy over months and even years It is inevitable that you're going to come out well ahead on this so We're aiming for 30 minutes as a baseline for your productivity every day because for many of us when we struggle with procrastination Our baseline for effort is zero many days will go by when I don't do anything. I have zero hours done We're just raising that up to a new threshold a new lower threshold Which is 30 minutes at least every day now is going by and I'm doing something towards my goal in this and then you can have Days when you have I say you mix consistency with rare moments of greatness So there's 30 minutes. I'm doing things every day something towards it And then when I feel that that positivity I feel that motivation I feel that my nervous system is on my side. I would put in much higher effort on occasion Now this is rolling 30 minute blocks I usually say to people you only ever commit to 30 minutes at a time So you say to yourself look I'll do 30 minutes You go you do the 30 minutes. Maybe you feel that continuing Maybe you do an hour. Maybe you do 45 minutes beautiful take a break next step Continue to only commit to 30 minutes at a time and at the end of the day You might look back and you've got two and a half hours three hours done. Okay? When I was doing this I was again, I've said this in so many videos here But I was a chronic procrastinator weeks would go by when I wouldn't do anything and it was all this guilt story This this not good enough narrative But when I started to do this I Started to become finally started to get consistency and there was no longer these long long breaks in this so and I had these moments then when I would actually do at times when I started to get over this procrastination stuff Some days and I'm not advocating this but some days I was doing nine hours of solid work And it was pretty regular nine hours of solid focused work now again I'm not suggesting that that's should be the norm. Okay at all 30 minutes It should be the baseline and that's all you're aiming for everything beyond 30 minutes is a baseline or is a bonus What I am saying here is You have no idea how capable you are and how how capable of massive productivity You are until you really resolve this issue of procrastination You're doing the work. You're putting in the effort. You're well on track and see this is a long-term growth process for you Okay, this is not something you have to get perfect that straight away your growth trajectory here is like this Okay, you're going up and up and you're improving all the time with this you're going to improve the relationship You have with yourself You're going to develop self-trust and once you get more of that self-trust and we stop that self-sabotage cycle or mechanism That is inherent to procrastination Your your trajectory is only going to go one way and it's up. So Jenny reach out again Let me know if that was helpful. I hope it was and for anyone else that's interested in this You can go to my website the link is below You can either buy my book on procrastination or you can sign up for my online video course Which you can also get the book as a bonus in that and I'll show you exactly how to overcome this issue and So far it's helping a lot of people so I'm really really pleased about that I'll leave it there for now. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you next time