overcome procrastination worksheet
This worksheet shares the 5 reasons why you’re still procrastinating and exactly what to do to overcome it.
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Overcome procrastination as an entrepreneur with templates, videos and resources.
Procrastinating as an entrepreneur has a negative impact on your business in many ways. Perhaps you are not dealing with unproductive employees, avoiding challenging business decisions or even wasting hours distracting yourself from the business. Yet by overcoming this negative habit, you can build your business to higher levels of profitability, success and growth.
What is procrastination?
For entrepreneurs, procrastination is avoiding doing a task that is important in your business.
Why is procrastination so important to overcome?
If you know what to do but you don’t follow through, you are stunting your business growth.. It doesn’t matter how driven, organised and motivated you are. If you don’t overcome procrastination, you will waste valuable time, distracting yourself and becoming frustrated you aren’t progressing in business.
The longer you wait to overcome procrastination the worse it can become. You don’t want to look back and think why your competitors have expanded so much faster than you. You don’t want to look back in 3 years time knowing you haven’t achieved your business objectives. You don’t want to not be able to provide for your family and those that you cherish. Procrastination is not an optional habit to overcome, it is a MUST to help you grow a successful sustainable business.
Why do entrepreneurs procrastinate?
Negative associations
You may procrastinate because you don’t want to do the tasks in your business. For example, you don’t want to do your accounting. When you think of accounting and numbers it causes your brain to stress. You end up doing everything else possible as opposed to looking at your numbers. The negative association you have towards accounting, prevents you from following through.
Fear of failure
You’re scared of failing. You may believe you are productive distracting yourself with books, reading and courses. Perhaps you even distract yourself with youtube videos or Netflix series as opposed to working on your business. You say to yourself that you don’t know enough, you aren’t ready yet or that you need more time. Yet, the truth is that at your core, you have a fear of failure
Abstract Goals
You set goals in your business such as: make more money or gain more clients. But without an actionable plan these are very difficult to execute on. You spend time attempting to do work yet your mind wanders onto different subjects. Without a clear focus it is easy to fall off track, as you don’t have a clear action plan to execute. If you have this challenge, check out The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting
Lack motivation
You know what you want in the future but it seems so far away that you can’t bring yourself to take action right now. You can’t seem to fathom how you could build up a business that runs without you. You don’t see the steps you have to take now and it leaves you feeling uninspired. This leads you to distract yourself with tasks that make you feel you are progressing, but the truth is you are just keeping yourself busy.
Constant distractions
In the world we live in today, it is easy to procrastinate. Would you like to work on your business plan or quickly respond to a friend who sent you a message? You have employees knocking at your door wanting guidance and emails coming through every 5 minutes. It is easy to be distracted with so many notifications continuously throughout the day
Indecisive
You want to make sure that you make the best decisions for your company. But this often leads you to take a very long time to make important decisions. Your indecisiveness means that you can’t make hard decisions quickly. Instead you distract yourself with less important tasks. You are hoping that someday in the future you can be 100% sure of the decision you need to make.
Overwhelmed
You may have tasks that you feel are too big for you to tackle. This causes you to not even start the task, as you don’t even know where to start. This feeling of paralysis can go on for days or even weeks, where a task is too daunting to do. You may even attempt to do it once, but after realising all the factors involved you avoid it all costs.
Fear of negativity
You want to make sure that everything is right before you launch your product. You worry that if something goes wrong you will receive negative press. This causes you to revisit various elements of a product until you feel it is perfect. The fear of negative criticism causes you to delay on your tasks.
The 6 types of entrepreneur procrastinators
There are 6 types of entrepreneur procrastinators. By understanding which type you are, you can more clearly identify where you need to focus to overcome your procrastination
The Avoider
This type of procrastinator struggles to build a business due to avoiding important tasks. An example you may experience is becoming obsessed with content creation and procrastinating on marketing. The root cause of your issue can be Imposter Syndrome. You are afraid of being revealed as inferior so tend to procrastinate on tasks that aren’t necessary.
The Dreamer
You believe that you shouldn’t have to do anything to be successful. Since you are great at what you do, you should be paid well for your work. You feel frustrated and become bored when you don’t do tasks that relate to your calling.
The Perfectionist
You’re too obsessed with making everything perfect. This stops you from following through on business tasks, as you are in constant planning mode. This focus on planning and avoidance of execution stems from a core belief that if it isn’t perfect then you are a failure.
The Worrier
You worry that you can’t succeed. You believe you aren’t good enough, aren’t skilled enough or it’s not the right time. This fear of not succeeding, creates a cycle where it is better not to start the task. The constant focus on failing leads you down a destructive path of self-sabotage.
Novelty Explorer
You will find that you have too many projects and often feel overwhelmed with the amount of work that you have to do. You tend to have the Shinny Penny Syndrome. You keep switching projects believing that the new one will lead to more success. Fuelled by a rush of creating business, you forget to focus on the long-term value of each business project.
Crisis creator
You need pressure to start a task. Without urgency you tend to focus on other less important tasks. You believe that you have enough time, until you don’t. This causes you to move through cycles of overworking followed by lazy procrastination.
How to stop procrastinating (step-by-step Guide)
Here is a quick summary of the video above:
- Identify your type of procrastination
- Understand why you’re procrastinating
- Interrupt the procrastination pattern (watch the video for 3 great tips on this)
- Install empowering alternatives
- Use the power of business identity
If you are struggling to change your mindset to overcome procrastination, it will be due to one of these 8 reasons.
8 Proven methods to remove the habit of procrastination
Focus on a clear goal
You must understand what your goal is. The reason you often procrastinate is that you don’t have a clear business objectives that you are working towards. Your mind becomes side tracked onto other more interesting tasks.
You need to create a clear outcome, break it down into smaller tasks and plan them out. This will help create clear deliverables and objectives to achieve during the day. Not only does this help keep you focused but it also helps you progress even faster towards your goals. For help creating clear goals check out the The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting
Know your why
If you don’t know the reasons for you doing a task then it is difficult for you to follow through. Using our previous example of accounting, you may avoid this for as long as possible. Yet if you clarify the reasons why you need to this it can help you follow through.
Perhaps you want to save money efficiently, avoid a big tax bill or become a smarter money manager. By becoming aware of your reasons, you will be more likely follow through on your tasks.
Change your environment
You want to make it hard to procrastinate. Put your TV in a box, lock it and put the key downstairs in a jar. Put your phone on airplane mode and leave it out of sight during the time you are focusing on tasks.
It may sound ridiculous, but these methods will help you overcome procrastination. You need to recreate your environment to help remove distractions. Think about what distracts you the most and remove it from your business hours.
Focus on the next step
You often become overwhelmed in business when you take too many projects on at once. You don’t know where to start and can’t focus on the tasks you need to do. You become stressed out and often avoid doing anything altogether.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Yes this is absurd and of course I am not encouraging you to eat elephants. However, sometimes our projects feel so big that we don’t even start. Break them down into smaller pieces and you will find it easier to manage. If you feel stuck think about this question: what is my next step?
Take regular breaks
That’s right, you need to allow a break in the day to chill out. Planned relaxation is what you can call it. Here you aren’t procrastinating as you planned not to do anything. You can’t work all the time, every minute or every hour, for the rest of your life. You need to spend 5 minutes relaxing and then move back onto your tasks.
Make sure to not create a back-to-back schedule during the day. You also want to slightly overestimate how long it will take you to complete a task. By doing this, you can take the much needed breaks or planned relaxation which you deserve!
Tackle challenging tasks first
It is easy to put the hardest tasks at the end of the day, or even the end of the week. Yet by scheduling the hardest tasks first in the day you have a clear mind to tackle them. This will help enable you to utilise the energy you have in the morning to the best of your ability.
You can then use time in the afternoon for tasks that need less energy. You can also be more flexible in your schedule as you’ve completed your hardest task of the day. Make sure you give yourself more time than you think to ensure that you complete the task in time.
Make yourself accountable
You can set deadlines for other people, but you must also set deadlines for yourself. Make sure that you state when you are going to finish your tasks and make them public to the team. To further increase your accountability, share the aims you have on your social media.
This is not something that you do once. This needs to be a regular practice that you adopt so that you can keep pushing yourself. By using accountability, you can have a clear outcome to work towards. This will help keep you on track and inspire your team with your progress.
Use time management strategies
There are various time management strategies to use to best utilise your time. You could time block your day into 1 or 2 hour segments for a specific task. You could start using the Pomodoro Technique. You could do creative tasks in the morning and meetings in the afternoon.
The key here is to create a system that works for you. You don’t need to overcomplicate it. Test a strategy that you think will work best and then see what results you can generate.
Ready to take the next step?
If you haven’t already, make sure to download the procrastination worksheet here. You will learn the 5 reasons why you’re still procrastinating in business and how to overcome them.
You will want to have support on your journey to help you overcome procrastination even faster. If you haven’t already do check out the Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator. This program will help you overcome procrastination, improve your business growth and create the freedom you desire.
