Dear Fellow Procrastinators…
We get a bad rap, don’t we?… Let’s Chat!
We get shit done!!
We just need:
-meaningful deadlines,
-accountability,
-consequences,
-and a little urgency to do so.
...What if… that’s OKAY?
...What if we stop treating that like a moral failing?!
What if instead of...
once again… punishing ourselves,
once again… trying & failing to change,
once again… adding that pesky task to our to-do list and saying:
“I’ll start tomorrow, I promise!”
...We accepted, anticipated, embraced, and worked with our tendencies?
If you’re anything like me, your procrastinator tendencies surprise you each and every time.
We can responsibly set incremental goals and make blueprints like the best of them! But then, when other urgent things inevitably come up, our best laid plans fall to the wayside.
We’re certain that this was just a busy week!
Friend… If saying “This time I’m going to learn from my mistakes and spread out my work in a more manageable way” hasn’t worked yet, it’s probably not going to.
My friend. It’s time we learned we are who we are.
If there’s no pressure, we have to assume there will be no action!
Yes, let’s set incremental deadlines responsibly!
AND recognize that to meet those incremental deadlines, we NEED a little healthy pressure to meet them.
We’re not broken. We’re not lazy.
If we were, we wouldn’t have moved the mountains we moved when the pressure was on...
This is simply how some of us are wired (hello, fellow ADHDers!)
Let’s instead seek out spaces where procrastination is the expected pattern—not the problem to fix!
Spaces where time-limits, accountability, and healthy pressure were baked into the process...
...juuuuust enough pressure to get you motivated to take the next small step. But not too much to send you into a panic?
Find your fellow procrastinators and set up systems that work for YOU with people who understand you!
-Meet on Zoom to silently work together.
-Join a club of folks with similar goals.
-Ask for grades, deadlines, & feedback from trusted team members during each phase, not just the final product.
Pump in a tiny bit of stakes and panic along the way so you don’t have to deal with giant stakes and panic right at the end.
And give yourself a little grace!
Your parent/teacher/boss who keeps telling you to “Just break the project into small manageable steps! :) “ is very well-meaning.
But they are not YOU. They’re not better than you! They just don’t need the same things you do to get stuff done. That’s okay!
Keep moving mountains, my friend!!