 So guys if you've ever struggled with procrastination, you know, that's what my big part of what my channel is about here But I have a question here from someone who has recently taken my procrastination course And I think it's a great question. So I'm gonna read down through it. I'm gonna give them some advice and Hopefully it'll help you too. So see if you recognize any of your own issues with this person's here This is from David and it says I asked David for some clarifications on his issues And this is what he has come back with here. It says Procrastination is the source of all my problems and it's especially bad at work So I'm now working from home and there's no external accountability for anything So yeah, this is what happens. This is where You know, we're not trained to be productive without an external source of accountability This is why it's so difficult. Usually when people leave school, they start to get problems with procrastination At least it gets worse. The consequences become more obvious But I have a lot of autonomy over my job, but I find it difficult to stay motivated There are days that I will have that internal battle between I should be working and Well, I want to take a break and this goes on all day long There are days when I'm literally only I've only sent one email Then I say I'll catch up during the evenings, which is my personal time But I often don't do that either I sit there in suffering wanting to enjoy my night But feeling awful awfully guilty that I didn't do any work that day every day The pile up of work gets bigger And I feel like I can't get out I don't get back to emails or clients and I'm building a reputation as an unreliable person It affects my social life and I tend to Punish myself by not having any fun and that is the real danger with this Now there's more to this question, but the pause there for a bit because there's a lot there David, right? And for anyone else who's watching this video So what you're seeing is we have guilt or noticing that there's guilt there and that's a big big driver in this Okay, and we're also noticing already that there is No real boundaries in place There's this personal time has been eaten into and Things like socializing with friends or allowing yourself to have fun Are up for negotiation Okay in my approach in my book in my course I talk about the need to have strict strict boundaries Even maybe even especially when you're not being productive Okay, you don't change the fact that every day you have to have a boundary with work It gets done or it doesn't but the boundary needs to be maintained and that means I still have time for myself that can't change But we'll read on here I've been implementing all of your techniques and was particularly intrigued by picking a time and if you don't start You're done for the day. So for anyone that doesn't know one of the main techniques in in my book and my course Again, let me let me sell my book Here it is procrastination decoded. This is exactly how you understand why you procrastinate You can get it on my website. Just e-book. It's probably easier But in this book I talk about Boundaries with work and one of the things that we do is In order to overcome procrastination to become more productive, right? It is we have to develop self-trust and that means if I say I'm going to do something We have to make conscious choices of when we're going to do something and we just start to implement consequences for any time that we don't follow through on something and the main consequence I have found to be the most effective is if you don't engage with work when you say you're going to Immediately you need to step away from work for the day entirely You train your nervous system into realizing that when you're making these conscious choices They either get done or they don't for that day Okay, there's a lot more to it and uh, you can you can read it in the book, but To continue here with david's question. So he found that intriguing I just did that technique today and I Had to go into the office But when I came home in the afternoon To start working. I told myself that if I don't start working at 2 30. I've lost my privilege to work I was able to get a report done Okay, fantastic, great But there's still so much work to be done How can I implement that technique over the course of an eight hour work day? When my number one goal is just to get more done at work so I can enjoy my night Now right there. I don't like that language Get more work done so I can enjoy my night Enjoying your night is not up for debate It's not negotiable your night is going to be enjoyable whether or not you get work done or not Switch off that work that privilege to work has to be switched off at a certain point every day Okay, and I want you to get really really strength just do it as an experiment I know it seems overwhelming and it's a challenge to your nervous system which wants to it has that Taskmaster that wants you to keep working keep working keep working and of course work is important But it's this excessive taskmaster inner critic voice that just drives us all the time. That means Our motivation goes off cliff. Okay, so I continue here How can I get more work done, okay? 30 minutes just isn't sufficient. I talk about just having a limit for 30 minutes plus whatever else you can do Should I set a time for myself multiple times a day? How can I just be more consistent at work? When I expect I'm expected to work eight hour eight to nine hours a day. Okay Expected to work eight to nine hours a day Let me just say one brief thing here on that Very very few people work eight to nine hours a day regardless of what they tell you most people if you break down their day And you look at what they've actually done Maybe a few hours two three hours four hours tops of actually engaged focused productive work Other than that it is not eight to nine hours a day Now what I'm trying to get you to do here is to be conscious in in your work And be super focused when you're working when you're working you're working and when you're not working you're definitely not working But this idea of eight to nine hours a day It's possible It's possible to do it, but it shouldn't be the norm. It shouldn't be the goal There's nothing wrong with it. It can be a good thing to do when I've done it myself from time to time especially when when I needed to But I'll explain to you how I would do that, but just realize for a second Okay, sure you want to get more done in 30 minutes, but 30 30 minutes a day is a baseline it's so it's like Well 30 minutes isn't enough. Well, it's better than nothing Okay, and we want to avoid days when you're doing nothing at all And you want to give yourself a big pat on the back every time you do anything positive towards your goal Right any kind of improvement should be a success and celebrate it But yeah, what you do is with the technique in order to do like a long day of work productive work The most important thing is you wake up And you set a time for yourself in the future When am I going to start you show up Because you know if you don't you lose your privilege to work that day You engage with work. Maybe you do 30 minutes. Maybe you do an hour But you decide okay. Look I'm feeling a bit tired I'm going to take a break. How long do I need to take a break for? Usually longer than people usually give themselves a break for But you set another time for yourself to study or to work whatever it is a lot of my clients are in university and self-employed But if it's I'm going to start work later on but you keep selecting times for yourself for when you're going to engage And as soon as you don't show up you're done Okay, you step away for the day and at the end of the day you look back and you might notice you've done seven or eight hours Okay, even nine hours occasionally if you're really on You're taking shorter breaks probably but the main thing is you're making conscious choices That you know have consequences So When there are multiple projects with multiple deadlines and multiple obligations Okay, so that's what you do when you're busy. It's okay to do this from time to time But you still even in those busy times you have your boundaries with work There's no negotiation on time for yourself away from it I'd like to say as a side note This is the last paragraph Dave writes here that I have really become physically fit during this pandemic And I have been able to build in consistency with this But I've become almost obsessed with it It doesn't feel good because it still feels like I'm doing exercise to avoid work Like I'm challenging all my work energy into working out which it Is in itself a good thing but entirely unproductive when it feels like I'm using it to escape work And that might be the case. Okay. That's that's called sublimation And we're challenging our negative emotions into something socially acceptable or even something socially encouraged the exercise itself Of course, it's a great thing But if we're exercising for the wrong reasons, it's not particularly good for our overall emotional well-being so This will become far more balanced when you get a handle on the procrastination thing I know you're you're taking the course when you're in the course The e-book is there. I want you to see the e-book as Something that you will read again and again Okay, and just do those little exercises in the book that I talk about in terms of just reminding yourself of what New philosophy is in terms of productivity. It's not the old school work work work It's strict boundaries Making it easy on yourself encouraging yourself for any little successes you have And seeing this as a long game, right? When the stress of work goes away You will probably notice that you're exercising In a more balanced way and it's not used as an escape from this stress at work because there's a huge amount of stress Like even in good times when we don't have procrastination work in itself is stressful. Okay But when you add in this issue of procrastination at top the Pretty normal everyday level of stress at work becomes You know amplified massively So we want to get a handle on this. Okay, we want to get you to the point where you're engaging and you're not feeling overwhelmed and you're feeling optimistic about it and Don't worry too much about that. It's it's called sublimation. It's better than the alternatives, you know, like Um, you know people people drink for instance, okay to escape their negative emotions sublimation is It's not ideal, but it's a more socially acceptable coping mechanism or defense mechanism really So you'll notice that when you get this procrastination issue done that will probably balance itself out But the main thing here is Don't negotiate on your own space and work on developing self trust when I Identify I'm going to do something I either do it or I don't and I implement in a consequence when I don't Okay, and they just continue to set times for yourself that day until that hard border boundary comes with I'm finished now Okay, you have to identify time in your day when the work is finished Because without that there's just your nervous system becomes overwhelmed that it thinks I'm always going to be working I'm always working. I'm always working and then it it will It will flare up and it will it will Throw a spanner in the works. It will resist that So David, I hope that was useful. I hope that was useful for other people who have been watching this video My whole approach to procrastination is not this work work work thing. Okay, that's outdated That's finished with now the new approach to personal productivity is all about reconciling what your nervous system Not seeing your nervous system as a personal defect a flaw It's understanding it learning how to talk to it and noticing as soon as you do that you're on your way There's no drama and you get things done. It's very simple. So I hope that was useful guys and Maybe leave a comment below if you have any questions yourself and I'll talk to you guys later