"How can I stop procrastinating?" a talk with Chelsey Newmyer

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Corinne Powell: Very happy you're here with us today because Chelsea Newmyer has things to share that are going to help you. If you find yourself procrastinating, sitting down saying, I really need to do those things, but not getting up and doing them, Chelsea's your girl. She's here to help you out. 

She says that she is a nerd for all things time management and productivity because, after years of reading frustrating productivity advice that didn't match her life, she decided to start her own coaching business to help solopreneurs and nonprofit leaders maximize their time by getting the personalized productivity they needed to reach their goals. And today, she's here to help us.

So enjoy the episode, listen all the way through, and please share with a friend. Today, we're specifically talking about procrastination. And I know even as I say that word like there are some people listening who are like, oh, good, because I need that.

So we are all ears, Chelsey, and you can share your wisdom with us. 

Chelsey Newmyer: Oh, perfect. Thank you so much for this invitation. I am definitely a nerd for all of these, all things related to time management and productivity. So whenever I get an opportunity to share anything about procrastination, especially because it hits so many people, everybody experiences it. So it's a really important topic. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Yeah. So where do we start? 

Chelsey Newmyer: Absolutely. So I always like to start with the definition of procrastination, because I think a big misconception is that people will call themselves procrastinators.

And then this becomes this identity that they have. And really, it's just a behavior, right? You're just procrastinating. You're not a procrastinator, because it's just a choice in a behavior that we're making. And with that, it means you can change it. It means that you can overcome it.

It means that we can find ways that make sense for you to get back to work when you find yourself in that procrastination place. The other really important point is that procrastination is not the same thing as being lazy. 

When you're lazy, it means you have no willingness to exert the effort to get the task done, right? You see the dishes in the sink, and you just don't care that they're there. That's laziness. Procrastination is, I see the dishes in the sink. I want them done. I need them done. I know how important it is to have them done, but there's some friction.

There's something causing me to delay that action. And so that's also really important, is that they're not the same thing. And so we can stop calling ourselves lazy when we're procrastinating, because all that really is, procrastination is information.

It's telling you that there's some friction between you and the task, because you know that it's important. You know you want it done. So I always like to set the stage whenever I talk about procrastination with those two really important points. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah, that's good. People can feel better about themselves and stuff than they are.

Chelsey Newmyer: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So step one, stop calling yourself a procrastinator. Stop calling yourself lazy. I'm going to give you some strategies. And really, there are six reasons that people procrastinate, at least when I talk about it, right? This is how I've kind of summed it up.

The first one is that you have an abstract goal. So this is that you are unclear of the end goal. So starting a podcast, for example, that's a really big project. There's a lot of decisions to make. There's a lot of different ways that it can be done.

And so if you just want to start a podcast, that's a big project you can procrastinate on because you don't exactly know what it’s going to be called. What exactly am I going to talk about? Am I going to do guests or am I going to just talk as solo episodes? Am I going to have to edit? Now I have to learn how to edit, right?

You have to all of those things happen. So if we're not really clear about what the end goal is, it can be really hard to get started, which is why so many people delay starting a business, right? Because they're not exactly sure what that end goal is going to look like. The second reason I talk about is indecisiveness.

And this is discomfort or uncertainty around making a decision. Indecision can often mask itself as research. So this is for folks who are spending days trying to pick the best CRM or the best email tool or the best laundry detergent instead of just making a decision and recognizing that you can always change your mind, right? Very few things that we decide on are truly locked into place. And so if you are overly researching or really struggle with making a decision, that's often a form of procrastination or reason that we procrastinate. 

Fear of failure is a fear of embarrassment or repercussions. So that's really tricky, right? If you have to put ourselves out there for training for a new sporting event or a run or something like that, right? There's a lot of opportunities for us to fail, and that can be really scary. And so that could be a reason that people hesitate to get started. Waiting for a deadline is requiring that additional pressure of a deadline to get started.

And this one always makes me laugh because I really started my productivity coaching journey as a tutor for high school students. I was an executive function tutor. Everybody has a different threshold for when they start feeling the pressure of the deadline.

For some people, it's two weeks before that deadline. For some people, it's two hours before the deadline. No one has a higher threshold than a teenage boy. They don't feel that pressure until it's two hours before the deadline. So much to their parents' stress, right?

Which is why they hired me to come in and help. Right. I don't think that having that pressure is a bad thing, right? People who thrive under that kind of pressure, it helps us focus. It helps with clarity. It helps us ignore distractions. It's all good stuff. But if that's your go-to move, if you need that pressure, then we have to build some safeguards for you. 

Because what happens when you wait until two hours before then your internet goes out, right? Like that's how we get ourselves into trouble. The next reason is task aversion, which is you just don't like doing whatever it is, right? We all have things in our day where the dishes example, right?

We hate doing the dishes, but we recognize that they're important, so we avoid it. And then perfectionism, which I always say is the close cousin of fear of failure. And that's wanting or waiting for the end result to be perfect. 

So actually, if you are a perfectionist, you are also probably a huge procrastinator, because if you don't know how to make it perfect, you're going to struggle to get started. So those are the six reasons that I see most often causing problems with procrastination. 

And when I'm coaching someone, even if someone says like, oh, I'm not really a procrastinator or I'm busy all day, I'm always getting stuff done. Procrastination can actually manifest in a lot of different ways. So I have the kind of traditional buffering, I call it, right? That's the traditional where you may be playing on your phone or watching TV or kind of like puttering around your house or clicking open a bunch of tabs. On your computer, right? Like you're not you're in motion per se, but you're not actually doing anything. Productive procrastination is my personal favorite way to procrastinate.

And this is when we clean our entire house instead of writing that email that we have to or researching the car we have to buy, right? That's when we do literally everything else instead of the task that we have to do.

And it feels good because we are being, quote, unquote, productive. We are getting things done, but we're not actually working on the thing that we need to, to move our closer to whatever goal we have. 

Corinne Powell: Oh, yeah, I can identify with that. 

Chelsey Newmyer: That is, that was me to a T. It still is quite honestly.

But I always joke that during finals week of college was the cleanest my apartment was all year because I would clean my entire I can't study of the house and 30, right? Like it's that kind of stuff, right? Like you will start rearranging your closet instead of something work related or home, you know, something actually important that you need to get done. 

My other favorite strategy for procrastinating is what I call procrastinate planning. I didn't come up with that title, but it fits perfectly. And this is where we will over strategize or over plan instead of actually just taking action and executing.

So if you find yourself spending hours planning out your week versus just starting getting it started or hours laying out a new program or a new email welcome sequence, like whatever it may be, you're spending hours planning it instead of just starting to take action. 

And that's not me saying that planning isn't important. It's critical for life, but it's when it tips into that I'd rather overplan than just start to execute.

For me, this actually looks like rewriting my to-do list because it gets a little too messy. And so I will rewrite my to-do list, which is a really silly, but very illustrative example of progressive planning. And then there are things like, right, just similar to buffering is like avoidance, right? You may just not go into the kitchen if it's messy. And then the other two that come up quite a bit are distancing yourself from the result. 

And so this is a bit of a mind trick that we can play on ourselves where we say, it doesn't matter how hard I work on this or for how long I do it because it won't be very good. And it's so it's a nifty little trick, a negative thought pattern, but it means that no matter how much time I invest or how hard I work on this, it's not going to be good. So why bother putting the time in? I'll just rush at the end.

The flip side of that is wishful thinking, which is that classic famous last words of, this will only take me 10 minutes. I don't have to do it right away. Right. And then like four hours later, we're, you know, fighting with some tech-related thing on hold, you know, with all that jazz. So those are two other ways that it can manifest. And so, again, procrastination is not always that cliche, laying on the couch or spending a lot of time on TikTok or Instagram, right? Like those absolutely are ways that it shows up, but it can also look like you're actually being productive when you're not. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. I'm sure you're speaking to a lot of us. So what do we do if we recognize, oh, I fall into this procrastination. She's described me.

Chelsey Newmyer: Yes, absolutely. And so I do have a couple of strategies that I like to recommend folks and they can, when I walk through this list, also be thinking about the ways that these compare nicely together and work well with different reasons that we procrastinate, right? If you are someone who has a task that you're avoiding, you may find a different strategy to overcome that than if it's, you don't understand the goal, right? 

Like there are different strategies here. So the first thing I always recommend when I'm working with someone to start overcoming their procrastination challenges is to break down the task. And I heard this said really well, that your to-do list are tasks, not projects. 

The reason that we like the reason we procrastinate plan or I'm sorry, our productive procrastinators, for example, is because those tasks tend to have very clear starts and very clear ends. And we can see the results. It is very tangible. It gives us that dopamine hit. It feels good, right? The clean dishes, the vacuum floor, right? 

Versus something that's a little bit more intangible that we're working on in our business or in our life, researching a new car, right? Like that's a project and it can, you're not seeing the tangible results immediately. So whenever we can break down that task as much as possible to give us that very clear, this is how I start. And this is how I know I'm done.

It just makes it that much easier to get started because you know what you're working towards, what that end goal is going to be. Each task on your to-do list should probably be, I mean, should not take you more than an hour. If something on your to-do list is going to take you more than an hour, break it down even further. 

So I will even, if I have to write five emails a week for my business, I will write weekly emails and then put five boxes next to it. So then it becomes five different tasks because write weekly emails, that's a project. That's a lot of steps. So you want to make it as bite-sized as possible.

The second thing we can do is remove distractions, which of course was going to come up in this conversation, right? Because it is a go-to move, of course, to grab our phone or to just be distracted by the pings that pull us away from the thing that we have to do.

So as much as you can put your phone in a mode that doesn't ping at you, turn off the notifications, whatever that may look like, get yourself into a workplace that promotes focus for you, whatever that may be. Even if you need to go to a coffee shop or close your door, whatever that may look like. I never put my phone on do not disturb because I did it once and my neighbor's kid fell and needed to be taken to the ER. 

I'm not a mom yet, but I don't ever recommend it because it's just not realistic for so many people to put their phone on do not disturb. But I love using focus mode on my iPhone because it changes your home screen. So you only see certain apps. It still allows you to get calls and text messages, but at least if I grab my phone, I'm not distracted by all the choices. 

I also turn off raise to wake, which means that when I grab my phone, the screen stays black unless I hit the screen. So if you just pick up your phone, it doesn't light up at you and again, doesn't pull you into it. So there's some easy tweaks that we can do there. I don't get pings for any emails, apps, or anything like that. Turn all of that off.

My other favorite strategy is called the five-minute rule. And there's two ways I use this. The first is like the atomic habits approach, which is just start for five minutes. So the example that he uses is like, if you need to start exercising, just say you're going to run for five- minutes and that's it. And give yourself permission to stop, right? It's really important that you keep that promise to yourself that you can stop after five minutes and that is still a success. But quite frankly, after five minutes, most of us are invested. 

We're just going to keep going. So trick yourself into it that way. The other way that I tend to use it more often is I'm someone who needs a runway to get started in work, to get motivated and build momentum. I'm not an eat your frog first kind of person. So I will actually set up what I would call like a power hour or a time block. You can call it whatever makes sense for you. But this is 20 minutes, maybe an hour.

Sometimes if I, there's a quite a few things where I do as many tasks that take five minutes or less as possible. And I just like crush through them. It gets a bunch of annoying little tasks off my to-do list. I do them in order. I don't question the order. I don't strategize and waste time with that. I just do them. And then it builds up that momentum. 

Like, look at me go, I'm on a roll. I can now tackle something that requires a little bit more effort and a little bit more brain power. And then, you know, there's also a couple of the obvious ones like making it fun.

Right? I put on a favorite playlist or know that there's going to be some reward or treat for myself at the end of it, even if it's just a walk or a phone call or I get to watch a show, wherever it may be. Right? Sometimes we have to like toddlers trick ourselves into doing the things we don't want to do. 

And that's why I say that some of these pair nicely with others. Right? Because if it's a task that you're trying to avoid, maybe after you do the dishes, you get to eat something that doesn't make a new dish dirty. Right? Like you did find a treat for yourself. And then really my other last two pieces of strategies here are one thing at a time.

A lot of us can get really overwhelmed and not know where to start. And that will stop us from both causes to procrastinating in general. So if you are someone who finds yourself doing this quite a bit, right? You just don't know where to start. My recommendation is either to write each task on a Post-it note and then only look at one post-it note at a time. When that task is done, you get to crumble it up and throw it away. 

Or sometimes I will physically my to-do list is to have sheet of recycled paper. I don't use a fancy planner or anything, but I will physically fold the piece of paper so that I only see the next thing on that list. 

Because the other problem is that as soon as we, if that next thing up, we don't really want to do, then we're going to waste time re-strategizing or re-tooling our to-do list of the three to five things we have to get done. And then it just becomes a whole game we play with ourselves. 

And we're going to consistently avoid it. So like, nope, this is what I have to do. I'm going to work until this is completed and just focus on that one thing at a time. And the last strategy is honestly just self-care. 

Everything is harder to do when we're tired, when we're hungry, when we're dehydrated, when we're stressed. So if we can just take the time and the moments we need to ensure that we have what we need, you're more likely going to be better focused and produce better work at the end of the day anyway. 

Corinne Powell: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I can second that because I just know recently this summer with having my kids more going on with my kids that I have to like take time before I can get into work to take a walk or do something like along the self-care lines to actually have the capacity to then flow and work. 

Chelsey Newmyer: Absolutely. Yeah. Those work rituals can be really, really helpful. It could be a walk. It could be picking a certain playlist or I know some clients will like light a candle at their desk. Right. And it just kind of helps them transition from whatever they were doing into like, okay, it's go time. It's work mode. Yeah. I also like when you said just being out the things that take less than five minutes, just bang those out and you feel good. 

I'm like, oh yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I don't really, there's moments where I'll do that. Like I'm like, I need to clean up and I'm like, okay, let me do all the things that are quick so that I feel like I'm getting things cleaned up and then work on the kitchen. 

That's going to take maybe a half an hour. But I want to utilize that more because that one stood out to me as a whole. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. And it's, it's really fun. And this, I mean, I didn't invent this, right. I think it's called a bunch of other things and every coach and guru has their own kind of philosophy around this. But for me, it really manifested as a really helpful exercise because I, I threw a load of laundry in and my washer takes 50 minutes. 

And so I was like, all right, now I have 50 minutes to like get as much done as possible. I used the 10 minutes of the hour to change, you know, put the laundry from the washer to the dryer and get a snack or go to the bathroom, whatever I needed. Right. And then I was able to restart for another 50 minutes while the clothes were in the dryer. And I just got so much done because it was just like a very manageable amount of time. 

And I, like I said, I listed out what I needed to accomplish in that hour or about 50 minutes and you just do them in order. The trick is you don't get to strategize once they're written down in that order, you do them in that order because otherwise you're going to play that whole strategy game, you know, check your inbox. 

If that's not on the list, right. Like stay focused on what's right in front of you. And a few other, you know, bonus tips I like to talk about too, and I'm working with someone through a lot of procrastination is, you know, again, as much as we can reduce the decisions that we have throughout the day as well. 

So if you can plan your day or week ahead of time, right. If you, I always plan the next day, the night before. So I sit down at my desk knowing what I need to work on, and then I'm not wasting time making those decisions every morning, right. 

Because decision fatigue is real. So as much as we can kind of set ourselves up for success, that really helps too, because then it's, you're not dealing with as much of those distractions right away. And I don't like talking about it quite as often, but sometimes we do have to do that reality check of the negative consequences to procrastination. Like there are consequences to not completing our work on time.

It's going to impact your reputation with clients. It's going to help, you're going to miss an important deadline for something or miss out on something for your children or for your family, like there are true consequences. And then that those stack up on each other and lead to that overwhelm or those longer to-do lists. So it is also the reality of not working. For sure. Especially that overwhelming piece. 

Yes, absolutely. Again, like at the end of the day, I think there's just, procrastination is such a universal experience. It happens to everybody. It happens to the best of us. And frankly, our level of productivity looks different every single day. So really, it's also just a matter of extending grace to ourselves, right? Procrastination is information.

So the information that might be telling you, you're too tired for that task today, and you're going to be more efficient and effective at it tomorrow. And so as much as we can just be kind with ourselves, that's also really important to be thinking about as you're structuring your day and your time, but also being truthful and intentional about it, right? Like, are you really tired or you just don't feel like doing it? So, be graceful, but also give yourself those reality checks. 

Corinne Powell: Yep. Yep. Definitely. I know in the line of work I do, like we even with some of my clients, we recognize that procrastination is because of their freeze response. And like, they want to get these things done, but then there's these deeper reasons why they're not able to do it. So yes, there are other facets, but I love that you're giving us so much practical, like, this is just so practical. Like we can start somewhere. You're touching on so many different things that we can all grab one thing and put it into practice if we want to.  

Chelsey Newmyer: A hundred percent, because as exactly as you mentioned, it is something deeper than just being lazy, right? Like it is so much deeper than that. It is information. What is, what is your hesitation telling you about that task? Does it need to be smaller? Does it need to happen at a different time of the day? 

Do you need to change where and how you're working on it in some way, shape or form? You need more information. So what is that hesitation telling you so that you can get what you need to get back to work? Yeah. Yeah. This is good. Thank you. Is there, I love talking about this topic. I think it's really important and, um, and really helpful because it also, it helps to laugh at ourselves a little bit too, right? 

Like sharing some of the ways that it shows up for us when we're cleaning our entire house and you're Chelsea, just, just go send the email. Like it'll take you two minutes, you know, and we see those funny reels or posts about like, Oh, I just spend an hour sending an email that would have taken me two minutes. 

Right. Like oftentimes we work it into our head as such a bigger, harder deal than it actually is. And that's also why I really love that five-minute, like the power hour type of thing, because it's amazing how much we could actually get done when we just force ourselves sit there and do them. 

Corinne Powell: Yes. Yeah. Yes. Well, as is my style, like I'm taking from this to also put it into practice because, you know, I think it's, it's so important. Um, and I know for me personally, like writing a book has been one of those things that for years, I'm like, you know what? I'm, I'm, I can feel this I'm supposed to do this. 

And it's just that ambiguous where, how long is it going to take? Like you talked about. Yep. And so in, in several ways, I've already been feeling that push and I'm like, you know what, here we are, we're talking about something that's just lines right up with, you just, you just put a few minutes in here and a few minutes in there. 

And then somehow we end up with something that we're like, okay, we we've got this. And I, and I know how that works in other ways, right? Five minutes of movement every day adds up to more than five gets there. It is 35. Yeah. Okay. Multiply that week by week. So, you know, it's just reconceptualizing it for a different, a different topic. 

But, um, I, I am even taking what we're talking about and going to implement it because I don't like to just talk about things. No, that's not the point of living. What can we do with what we're hearing and how it's activating us to do something? 

Chelsey Newmyer: Yeah. And I see so many people, their to-do list will be right book. I'm like, that, that's, that's a, that's a big project. A downfall there, right? I gotta break it down. You gotta break it down. 

So if you find yourself putting like those bigger projects on your list, you think about like, what's the next best step I can take to help me get this project done. And those are the tasks, right? That's what I mean by putting tasks, not projects on your to-do list, because projects can't, you can't write a book in a day. That'd be great.

CGP: But right. Yeah. Like you said with the emails, okay. So you're going to create five boxes. Exactly. Those emails and just actually like figuring out what are the steps and write down here's where I can start. Here's what I can do. And then it feels like, okay, that's a chunk I can buy. 

Chelsey Newmyer: Yes, exactly. And it's one email at a time. 

Corinne Powell: Yes. Yep. All right. This has been super helpful. I am certain that people are going to be able to do something with what you're talking about. And if they want to connect with you directly, they want your coaching. They just want to hear more of what you've got to say. Where's the best place they can find you? 

Chelsey Newmyer: Absolutely. So I have an Instagram account, which is at Chelsea and coaching and that's Chelsea with a Y. And then I think on my link tree there, there's actually a guide I have on how to overcome procrastination. 

So everything that I mentioned is in a downloadable PDF and you can keep it handy for when you're having those moments of friction in your day. The other best place to get that is on my podcast, which is called From Overwhelmed To Under Control. And then at the end of the show notes of every episode is a link to that procrastination guide. Cause again, this comes up all the time. And so it's been a great resource for folks. Awesome. 

Corinne Powell: And all of that, what you said will be in the show notes too, so they can find you, but you know, in case they never go there, they heard where to connect with you. And I hope they do. So thank you so much for being here. 

Chelsey Newmyer: Of course. 

Corinne Powell: If you enjoyed this conversation Chelsey and I had, I wanna highlight a few previous episodes that I’ve recorded for you that you might find of further help. From season 2 episode 23 Discover > Heal > Transform; from season 3 episode 24 - Boundaries and Promises to the Self; and from season 5 episode 3 -  Should I be this busy? Help for those who are but don’t wanna be. Go ahead and take a listen!

Corinne Powell: Well, we've come to the end of another episode. What did you think about what you heard and what resonated with your heart? If you were touched by this episode, is there a friend that you can share it with? Remember between now and when we speak again, that who you are is good. And I am so glad that you're alive.