Procrastination is Made Worse by Planning...Do This Instead

If you struggle with procrastination, there's a distinction I want to make between planning and the practice of reflection. The reason for this is that because when we struggle with procrastination, almost invariably we will use planning, really what turns into excessive planning, as a defense mechanism. And I'm going to talk here about replacing that tendency to plan and over-plan and re-plan and search for this great plan, to replace that with the need for reflection or the practice of reflection. So there's a distinction between the two we need to figure out, because it can kind of sound a bit similar really, I mean you're sitting there reflecting, it's very easy to see that sliding into planning, so it's good to know what the difference between planning and reflecting is. So why this need to have such excessive plan making when we struggle with procrastination, searching for this perfect plan? The reason effectively is that it comes down to a lack of self-trust. So what happens with procrastination over time, is that the fear materializes, that the fear actually with procrastination, and this is very important to know, the fear is that I won't show up when I say I will. Now that sounds like I'm describing what it is, but that's actually the fear. So after a while when we're noticing we're not engaging, when we said we would etc etc, we start to develop this anxiety, and the anxiety is directed towards ourselves, it's I feel I can't trust myself to do what I've said I should do. And that's where planning comes in, because in the absence of that self-trust, we feel that we need to micromanage, we need to really now get serious and really focus in on exactly what's going to happen, and we're looking for this clarity, this certainty, that we can we can guarantee through this perfect plan that we develop, that's going to compensate for the lack of self-trust, which is a very simple thing of just showing up when we said we would. And addiction actually is that simple, it can become that simple when you understand it fully at least. The problem with the excessive planning is that it doesn't work, in fact it often has the precise opposite effect that you would think it would. Sometimes it'll work for a day, a couple of days, right, you're able to pull off that plan that you've made, but much more common is that even if you stick to it for a while you start breaking the plan anyway, and then you go back well I need more planning, I just didn't have the right plan, I need to tweak it more, I need to the perfect system here, right, and we stay in that cycle for a long time just searching for this perfect plan that we think is going to work. So I'm saying okay forget the plans, after a while and you may be at that point already where you're like these plans aren't working. If I'm honest with myself how effective have they been at helping me engage with this thing? So if you're at that point you're like okay well I'd like to replace it, but what is this reflection thing? I mean what's the difference between reflecting, practicing reflection, and procrastinating planning, effective planning, or excessive planning? I could talk. So well here's the distinction, right, planning starts off with a judgment. So there's always a judgment about what even what's happened or something, right, it's like well I'm lazy, or I'm not organized enough, or there's something wrong with me, but it's always a harsh judgment. Effectively this planning comes from that judgment and it's judgment really about your identity, about who you are as a person, right, again lazy, not good enough, disorganized, whatever it might be, and therefore we go into this excessive planning. I've seen all sorts of plans, like excessive plans for people. I've seen many people who have this from the time they wake up in the morning to the time they go to put their head down at night. Every minute of their day is planned. Now that's not to say that they're following through on those plans. Much more often than not they are not coming anywhere close to being able to pull off those plans, but we still have the faith in the plans and it's really because we don't feel like there's an alternative, right. So instead of that, so the planning comes from a judgment and then it's how we're going to fix that judgment. Now the judgment itself is not real. That's kind of the problem with it, right, this idea that you're lazy. The term lazy doesn't actually mean anything. You ask 100 different people what that means and they'll give you different definitions of what it means, right. So it's just a kind of a lazy is a lazy term, doesn't explain anything, there's no insight in it, so it's just a judgment. Reflection on the other hand isn't judgmental. It has nothing to do really with your identity at all. What you're focusing more on when you're reflecting as opposed to planning is needs, needs, right, your needs. So examples of needs that you would have would be the need for spontaneity, the need for play, the need for responsibility, the need for doing something for yourself physically, these types of needs that we have, right. The need for rest, whatever it might be and those needs when you're actually reflecting, not judging yourself, reflecting, you're going to get much more insightful answers as to well why maybe that last thing that I tried didn't work, okay. So you're attuning more to your needs when you're in reflection, not your identity. It's not implicating your identity, this project you're working on or this task you're procrastinating in. Your identity is seen as off limits in reflection, right, it's got nothing to do with you effectively. So that's what you want to aim for if you're going to try and replace as excessive. Now you'll still get insights through the practice of reflection, right. Oh it's not because I was bad or stupid or not good enough or lazy, it's because that need wasn't met or I overlooked that or little small tweaks is usually what comes from the practice of reflection. Planning usually comes with a complete lifestyle overhaul. It needs to take place here now, right. For the last three days I didn't do that thing I said I would. I need to completely alter my whole life and be a different person. That's what tends to come out of planning. So growth doesn't work like that, right. Human beings don't work like that. They're not something that you can give them a software update or something and then they're functioning perfectly the next day. Human growth is supposed to be, you know, it's slow, right. It's growth. It's not explosive. It's like a flower grows or like anything in nature grows. It's organic and it's gradual. It's cyclical even. So that's how it works and that's kind of one of the distinctions between reflection and planning. It leads to steady growth, right, nothing explosive. Planning can also be a trying to avoid that, trying to look for shortcuts, trying to look for ways to really really accelerate things artificially and again artificially will be the word there because that's not how people grow. People grow through a very gradual process of attuning to themselves, not judging themselves and figuring out what it is they need based on their needs to move forward in their lives. So try if you've noticed yourself, right, if you've noticed in your life that you have been an excessive planner and that's a defense mechanism that you've been using to compensate for a lack of self-trust. I'm not saying stop planning, right, because that would be not very helpful to just take something away from you that you're currently relying on. I'm saying put that down and replace it with this. The practice of reflection. So it's just going in what how are my needs doing today, what was off, what worked, what didn't but there's no judgments, right. It's just attuning to yourself to figure out what small tweaks can I make here. Don't have to reinvent the wheel, this isn't going to be dramatic, this is going to be gradual. So I would highly recommend that for you if you are one of those people and I was one of them who were that you notice okay I'm addicted to this planning thing, I'm searching for this big elaborate plan or this perfect system whatever you want to call it and that search didn't lead me anywhere good ultimately. Now there were times when I had this new plan and I was like that's it I got it, I got it here, this is perfect. Check in with me three days later, that plan wasn't looking so good anymore. But what I have started to do and I've been trying to advocate for it more here and with clients and things is like the daily practice of reflection. What worked, right, what worked, what was off, how am I doing with those needs, did they feel met today, did they not feel met today, why was it difficult. No need to berate yourself, no need to attack yourself, no need for any judgment whatsoever and I think if you invested in practicing the you know practicing reflection as opposed to planning, give yourself two months of that I think you'll be much further ahead in terms of growth as a person than you would be if you were just planning or just constantly just searching for that plan, that elusive perfect plan that does not exist, doesn't exist. All those plans anyway by definition, they all collapse. It doesn't matter if imagine you did in theory right find today the perfect plan for you right now in your life. One thing you can guarantee is that if I check back with you in in three weeks it will no longer be the perfect plan for you because life is too fluid, life changes, you change, we change on a daily basis, an hourly basis sometimes right. So there's no such thing really as this perfect plan but there is the need for attunement, that's a genuine need we have and asking ourselves what it is we need is important. So that's my take on that, that's what you replace planning with, with the practice of reflection and I think it'll be a big help if you can make that maybe subtle change but it's very useful nonetheless. I talk about that in my book Procrastination Decoded, you can get it on my website or on Amazon and if you want to talk to me one-to-one, if you've got something you're working towards, maybe you're procrastinating on, you've noticed that tendency to plan excessively and it's not going anywhere okay, I've been there so reach out to me if you want to work through that as well. I'm a work with clients one-to-one so thanks for being with me and I will see you guys in the next video, take care of yourselves, bye.