Nicola: [00:00:00] hello and welcome to the female leaders on fire podcast. I’m your host, I’m Nicola Buckley, and I am a coach helping women at the very top of organizations. Find their fires, that purpose, that passion, that excitement, they can have more influence and more impact and be a real force for good in organizations, but without self-sacrifice, without compromising who they are.

And without needing to be someone that. And welcome to the podcast today. I am super excited today because this is off the back of something that I see all of my clients struggling with something that I can certainly struggle with. And it follows on from the podcasts that I’ve done by recently, that was all about perfection.

So today we’re going to be talking about procrastination and when I [00:01:00] say procrastination, I mean procrastination with a capital P capital R capital O like you are a professional, uh, cross sedation. So I’m going to be covering, I mean, talking a little bit about what procrastination actually is I’m then going to share some of the types of procrastination.

Um, they’re going to share some stats and figures. They’re going to chat about the impact for women at the top. And then I’m going to give you some tips to help you overcome it. And those tips are as always with me, there are things that you can do immediately. They are things that you can take away and you can add to your toolkit.

And you can start to make a change right here. Right now. I’m super passionate about not just talking about things, not just ruminating, not just reflecting, but actually taking really inspired action. So when it comes to that part, I’d have your notebook ready and a pad. And you can just jot down some ideas if you’re someone [00:02:00] that struggles with procrastination.

So what actually is procrastination. Procrastination? Yeah. At its heart is where we put off doing something where avoiding something, we’re not doing it. And if you actually look at the meaning of the word, the meaning of the word is around pitting off an intended action. If we go. At smaller GEA gang. So the geeky, meaning behind words, absolutely loves to know what word means.

And it can often give a completely different perspective. And the Latin world actually means pitting off something until tomorrow. But if you actually look at the Greek. Atomology the word it’s something, doing something that’s against your better judgment, which is a really interesting definition because that leads on to that feeling within procrastination.

That it’s something that you don’t want to do. It’s something that feels heavy. It’s something that feels challenging. It’s something that feels too much. So [00:03:00] procrastination, really the reason why it’s a follow on from the episode and perfections and because procrastination is kind of like the sister of.

Perfectionism. So when you’re stuck in that perfectionism mode, when you’re rewriting that email again, when you’re tweaking the slides that you’ve already had signed off and approved, when you’re putting together that report and you’re still just going through and making it all. Perfect. Checking it again.

And again, that is a form of cross-pollination in itself. And I’ll also share small the types of crustacean in a minute. But if you think of them that they sit together. So when you’re struggling with perfectionism, when something needs to, you need to spend more time on for it to be perfect in your eyes, that in itself is a form of procrastination.

So the first thing I’d been invited to think about is if you’re someone stuck with perfectionism, also think about if you’re someone that struggles with procrastination as well. And. Really what’s going on. So let’s have a look at [00:04:00] what’s going on from a brain perspective when you’re procrastinating. So what I share with clients and I’ve have had clients that struggle with procrastination, and it’s really around that lack of clarity, it’s around a lack of motivation or lack of inspiration.

I don’t talk to clients much about motivation. Because I’m when impasse instead about clients have an inspiration, motivation is externally applied. So coach like me can motivate you, but actually what I want you to have, I want you to have that fire inside you. I want to, to feel inspired. So that lack of inspiration, it might be that you have a lack of energy.

It might be that you have a lack of purpose. It might be a lack of understanding where you sit and where this, what you’re trying to do, where it sits within the wider organization. Um, from a brain perspective, it’s really that lack of clarity that the brain then goes into a frappe cycle. So if you think about the job of the [00:05:00] brain, I’ve talked about this a lot and I’m going to be recording very soon.

Our whole miniseries geeking out on I’m geeking out on neuroscience. As part of that, I’ll be sharing what is the brain’s actual job or responsibility. So. Lack of clarity, Lisa, that procrastination, and for a brain perspective, it sees it as a threat. That lack of clarity, not knowing what’s going to happen, not knowing what’s going to happen next.

So the brain wants to then remove that threat and it will. Stop you doing that thing because the brain perceives it as a frat. And the brain’s only job is to keep you safe, to make sure that you wake up tomorrow morning. So everything, anything that’s seen as a fret, anything that’s seen as negative, the brain really focuses in on over anything positive.

And also the brain will make sure that you move, or it will do anything to make you move away from. And then it will just present it. We’ll look for confirmation bias that that’s the right thing to do. And then it would just [00:06:00] put you into this procrastination mode and then you can end up in that cycle of procrastination.

So when you’re avoiding doing something, then you start feeling really not great about that at all. It might be that you start to self criticize. It might be, they start to feel a shame. It might be that you start to judge yourself. Then you put it off even more because it might be an embarrassing amount of time you’ve procrastinated over something, or the deadline is now passed, or it’s just at the point where you’re just too ashamed to actually do it.

And then you put it off again. And then that whole cycle starts again. And the brain has something which is called the present bias. So the brain is very much in the moment. So it looks at the presence over historical data over what might happen in the future. And it just, it just really focused on that present bias.

So if there’s an aversion to something that you don’t want to do, so if that’s a meeting that you don’t feel that you need to be at, that you feel resentful for. If [00:07:00] it’s something that’s been booked in your diary, that’s actually taking over some time that you wanted for thinking if it’s a difficult conversation with someone in your team, if it’s a challenging conversation you need to have with your boss, that aversion is really linked to that present bias of that’s not something that I want to do.

And that immediate thought of just wanting to avoid something that’s going to make you feel. Just make you feel that this, that, that frat or that something’s going to happen to you, which is negative. And we need that level of aversion depends on the task. So you might avoid cleaning your toilet. You might avoid changing your batter at home.

You might avoid at times just when you don’t have an NG walking the dog and then feel bad from it. And it’s just really comes back to what is the task and what is your reaction, and then really want you to take away from this and know that that is a brain reaction. It sees it as. It’s something that’s negative.

It wants to remove [00:08:00] it. And it wants to, in that moment with the present bias, it just wants to take you away from it. And then the other part of the neuroscience behind this is that when you’ve done it once or twice, it becomes a habit and you do it over and over again. The brain is really then looking at that as a habit, any habit, whether it’s good for you or bad for you, the brain doesn’t care about that.

The brain just knows that that’s something that’s happened to before that you’ve survived and you’ve got through. So the brain will just keep that playing over and over again. So you end up in this cycle of procrastination. If you’re in a time, a chapter of your life where you’re feeling quite low in energy, it might be, you’re feeling quite unfulfilled.

You’re not happy with your life at the moment. And you’re just being quite down. You might be feeling a bit lost or stuck. You go back to those habits and beliefs that have served you, that the brain knows inside out. And what that means is that you potentially, if you’re not feeling great, it might be that you’re more likely to procrastinate.

Especially over [00:09:00] things that you want to avoid, especially things that you have a really strong aversion to. So, first thing I want to say really is just that if you are a bit of a procrastinator, you’re certainly not alone with this. And if you think what we’ve been through over the last couple of years, Procrastination.

It’s just increased more and more because people just are struggling with that. Energy is struggling to keep going and struggling just to find that those positives, and even now in the last few weeks, I’ve had a lot of conversations with clients just around almost feeling like they’ve got a post pandemic hangover, so they don’t have the same energy they did before that just really struggling to get really focused and started in this year because of just tired.

But again, if you go back to neuroscience, what we’ve been for in the pandemic, we’ve been through a two years of constant change and the brain takes a lot of energy. So we’ve got this emotional and this energetic hangover of everything we’ve been through and that can, while leads you back to those habits can lead you back to [00:10:00] procrastinate.

So what other types of procrastination, what the different ways you might catch yourself procrastinating, and maybe at this point, grab yourself your journal and a pen so that you can make a note of the ones that you might struggle with. And this isn’t about being hard on yourself. It’s not about judging yourself, but you just might recognize some of these behaviors and some of these different types of procrastination in you.

And just rather than being hard in south and judging yourself, just be open to being curious and just being. Then you become mindful of what you’re doing and then you can start to make change. So five common reasons why people procrastinate and these five different types of procrastination and procrastinators.

So see which one of these you recognize in yourself nodding already? Cause I can always see myself in some of the, so the first one links back to our podcast episode, our earlier podcast episode of the perfection. So, this is really when you pay too much attention to those minor details when you’re benchmarking what you do at work against it, [00:11:00] being perfect against it, having to be that gold standard.

So no one can actually, you can, you’re not open to criticism. Um, You can almost get quite stressed and worried about starting the task or starting a project because you want to get every detail, right? You want it to reflect really well on you. You want to have it to raise your profile so you can really get stuck in the process.

And even when you started, it can be too scared to move on to. You might find it easy to do the planning for a project. You might find it easy to write the outline, the presentation, but it just feels heavy when you think about getting into actually getting it done. So what’s the advice for perfectionist.

So just think about progress over perfection. Think about just being really clear on the tasks and just giving yourself a time limit, to stay really focused and finished within the timeframe. And it’ll say go back and listen to the episode that I’ve already done on perfectionism. So second type of [00:12:00] procrastinator is the.

And this is someone who really loves making that ideal plan. They love having a strategy. They love knowing the steps. They love having a plan for the team around them. And they love that. They love being in that strategic planning mode, much more than they actually love taking action. So they’re highly creative, but actually find it quite difficult.

To finish a task. So they’re not necessarily a completer finisher. So a little bit of advice for the dreamer. You’ve got this incredible imagination, but just, that’s just get you feedback on the ground and start taking action. So with that big plan, that big strategy that you’ve loved putting together, just think of a couple of smaller towns.

That you can focus on. Think of a couple of things that you can support your team with. I’m really focused on progress and work over that perfectionism and needing it needing to be everything. So third type of procrastinator is the [00:13:00] avoider. This is really people that worry about. Taking on tasks that they think they can’t manage, that they think that, that be found out that worried that they won’t do a good enough job.

And they put off doing the work rather than being judged by others, where they end up making a mistake. They end up ironically being judged for not doing work so they can be seen as someone that is maybe a bit rushed at the end of a project, or potentially even seen as a little bit lazy, for example. So advice for the avoider just really make your tire, your friends.

So the things that you potentially worry about, just put them into your diary and just take that time and focus on that particular thing. So it might be that you feel anxious about the emails you might have from your. Oh, just thinking about feedback from a particular project that you’ve had. So just booking time to focus on those things rather than just letting them carry on.

And when you’ve done it, just give yourself a bit of reward, a bit of a [00:14:00] pat on the back. So type number four, our fourth procrastinator type is the crisis. Uh, the crisis maker deliberately pushes back until the work is really last minute and they actually can find deadlines exciting, and they think they work at their best on the pressure.

So they can be seen as managing their time poorly. They can be seen as someone who’s a little bit of a last-minute later. And just some advice for the crisis maker, just really booking time to just focus in on a particular project. And just start it, just start a little bit early and just maybe have some accountability with someone in your team or a pair to know that you’ve actually done it.

And a great little technique for just using time in a really productive way is the Pomodoro technique where you work for 25. And then you have five minutes off. So it means that you, you work in really short intensity focus bus, and that might give you that sense of pressure. And [00:15:00] that sense of that, that really clear time to get that thing done.

And then type number five is our busy procrastinator. So these are the people that have trouble prioritizing tasks because they have too many they’ve said yes to many things. They take on work. That’s outside the area. They’ve just given themselves far, far, too much to do. So this might be someone that needs to think about boundaries and think about saying no.

So you can have a listen to my previous podcast episode. So advice, the busy procrastinator, just think about getting your priorities straight, you know, what are your goals? What are your objectives? What are you going to be judged on at the end of the year? And then really think about how you relate your important tasks to that.

And be really clear if you need to say no to something or if you need to set boundaries. That’s absolutely. Okay. So those are our five types of procrastinator, but what the steps around procrastinating. [00:16:00] So it’s really, really interesting, just looking at some of the statistics around it, but procrastination tends to happen more in men, more men than women, and also more in younger people than older people.

And a really interesting statistic that I found that 55 days a year on average or loss. And each person just through procrastination. So the sun was behind. That is 218 minutes a day that we lose in procrastination. If we add that up over year that’s 55 days, that’s only two months. And that for me, it was a really shocking statistic because.

Just a small change in procrastinating and just doing things that take you away from what you intend to do and those things you might have an aversion to are going to make a huge, huge difference for you. And if you’re someone that struggles with this, it’s not about judging yourself, being hard on yourself.

It’s just about starting to make change. So how does this affect women at the top? [00:17:00] How does this affect women at the very top of organizations and those aspiring future? So procrastination and women at the top. So it could be down to things like not having enough time, which could be down to not saying no, not having boundaries.

It could be down to taking on more responsibility, more teams, more employees, and headcount in your team. And because you’re so capable, but you’ll have a fear of saying no. You have a fear of saying actually that’s enough, you have a fear of setting boundaries. It can also be from an energy perspective.

So it might be that you’re not prioritizing your health and wellbeing outside of work and in work. So you’re low in energy. You’re feeling tired. You’ve got that heavy energy about you and your diaries. So busy, just don’t get any time during the day to have lunch, go to the bathroom, to go for a walk. So gang it’s about picking yourself as a priority and on a future podcast episode, it’s going to be all about prioritizing yourself.

And that’s a [00:18:00] finer point as well. Uh, procrastination can be also because you’re not prioritizing your time. You’re not setting time in your diary to have time to think time, to be creative time to set the strategy that as a leader, that is what you’re actually paid to do. You’re too busy in the doing you’re too busy, supporting other people.

You’re too busy with your team and just giving everything to everyone else that has nothing left for you. And the symptoms of that procrastination can be that low energy can be that, that sense that you’ve lost love of what you do, that loss of ambition, because it’s so hard because you have to really fight for every step that every rung of the ladder for you has been really hard work because you a woman at the top.

So you need to prove yourself. You feel that you need to prove yourself more than any man would ever need to. So just to be really mindful of those symptoms and why they might be. So how can we start to overcome procrastination? How can you start to get past it and beat it? I have quite a long list here, so I’m [00:19:00] going to rattle through these, but again, I just urge you to get out your pen and your journal and just make a note.

And if you are someone that procrastinates, just make a note on a few things and try these things on and see what works for you. So the first one, if you’re feeling like you’re procrastinating a lot, I would just really invite you. First of all, just to empty your head for. So my clients do this just for a mental bomber or brain dump.

So just getting a sheet of paper and amped your head of everything, almost think of it. Think of the analogy of almost like you’re tipping your hat on that piece of paper. So procrastination can be that lack of clarity. So as soon as you start to empty your head, you’re going to have more clarity. You’re going to start to remove the frat of doing that thing.

So really empty your head first. The second thing is just what’s at the root of what you think is the belief or the story at the root of your procrastination. Is it related to your not feeling enough, for example, is it related to your value and worth? So are you procrastinating because you don’t fit [00:20:00] your work’s going to be good enough.

You think that you’re going to be found out. You think that you’re going to be judged really harshly, or you have that fear of why am I even bothering? Because I’m only going to fail. So really start to peel away the layers of the onion. What is at the root of your procrastination? Because once you can understand that you can start then to just really move away from it.

You can start to accept it. You can start to just then really. Change up belief and upgrade those beliefs. And a lot of my clients, I work really in depth with them around helping them change the beliefs of how they see themselves. The next tip is really around just really finding your energy flow for a day.

So if you find yourself procrastinating around three o’clock, is it because you started already eight o’clock and you’ve already had a long day and you’re not giving yourself a break, is it that you more for you? Creative thinking is best done in the morning. An admin task the best on at the end of the day.

So really [00:21:00] think about your energy flow for the day and how the tasks, and you can organize yourself through the day to really make the most of that and really tune into your own energy. And this is something that I do my clients or my find your fire program is help them to find their flow of the day and then set their diaries around it as much as possible.

So the next is really around. Looking at your diary and using your diary. So in a couple of ways, so first of all, look at your diary and think how busy it feels and how do you feel, does it feel exciting when you look at the things you’ve got booked in or does it feel heavy and draining? Artificial heavily have been draining.

Just set some boundaries say no to some meetings, delegate your team, push back that you actually need to be in attendance, or can you just get the notes and the actions from the meeting. So first really own your diary, really protect your time and know that you also not only need time for doing your job.

You need time also to be creative, you need time to set the strategy. You are the leader, so you need to be the [00:22:00] one creating that time. So use your diary to really find that time and protect it. And then on the other side of that one, Based on empty your head and having that list of everything that’s on your mind.

If there’s things that are future that you don’t need to think about right now, just put them into your diary or set a day aside to do certain tasks, whether that’s at home or at work, put them into your diary and commit to them. And then you can just stop thinking about them. Next tip is really around just thinking about getting some help.

So. Your whole life at work at home, it doesn’t need to be all on you. It’s not all on you unless you allow it to be so at home. For example, if you have a real aversion to changing your bed, hoovering the floor, if you never get around to cleaning the floor. Whatever it is. If you have a real aversion and you really procrastinate over it, you never get it done.

Ask some help. Um, for some of my clients, that’s also around finances [00:23:00] and maybe burying your head in the sun with it. So just a daily check in on your bank and just see what’s coming in and what’s going on. And asking your partner to sit down every couple of weeks and go for it together or ask him for help.

So getting a cleaner, getting a Gardner, getting a dog Walker, all of those things were okay. All of those things, actually, you taking control and just helping yourself to manage your energy and manage your time as a leader. So ask for help. And it was. Delegate your team set boundaries on things that are not for you and your organization, and just be super clear and know that no is okay.

And go back and listen to my earlier podcast all about saying no and setting boundaries. Next step is really all about breaking down the tasks. So if you procrastinate at the beginning of a big project, Just be really real with yourself. Be honest with yourself and just set some small tasks, set a next step.

Just the next [00:24:00] step. You don’t need to know every step of the journey to start the journey and just think about it. What you’re going to do when you get to end, how are you going to celebrate, but start with the next step. Don’t overwhelm yourself with need and get, get to the end immediately. What is my next thing?

How can I put that in? What do I need to do? Can I do it now? And then the final one is just really around. Think about time and just think about how best to use time. So is it the Pomodoro technique I talked about earlier? Is it using something like toggle, which just helps you to identify how much time you’re spending on different programs or is it actually having a peer.

Once a week, you book two hours with them and you just work on your own projects together. So half a real think about setting yourself up for just that timing and just really how to make the most of your time. So that’s everything I was going to talk about with procrastination. So if you’re someone that struggles with it, go back to the neuroscience.

So really [00:25:00] procrastination is just when there’s a lack of clarity, the brain perceives as a frat and that present bias and that aversion to something means. He just don’t want to do it. And then it can be come a habit and that can then happen over and over again. That cycle avoiding something, not feeling good, judging yourself, being harmed, new south criticizing, and then you put it off even more and more and more go back through those tips.

So we talked about empty in your heads. What’s at the roots you procrastination, what might the belief there is around being enough now your value and worth. Managing your diary using your natural energy flow, ask him for help step at a time, and then just using those different ways of just make the most of your time.

So that’s it for today. I would love to know how you get on with this and just don’t forget that procrastination is the sister of perfectionism. So go and listen back to that episode as well. And they sit together so you can either look at the perfectionism and start there and just implement a couple of the.

The tips into your toolkit, or you can [00:26:00] start here with procrastination. If you need help with this, this is something that you struggle with. Do drop me a message. I have spaces for a couple of VIP and focus coaching clients at the moment. The email is Nicholas Nicholas school code.com or drop me a message on LinkedIn.

Thanks so much for saying. On the next podcast. Bye-bye

if I took about really resonates with you and you love what I have to say, and you have moments and flashes of inspiration from the podcast. I would invite you to get in touch, to find out how I can help you. So individually, that can be through my coaching focus program for my VIP program, depending on how you like to learn and what will suit you, or I can help you in your organization to really help the women that you work with across the organization at all different levels.

And at that very senior level to really [00:27:00] feel empowered and to know that they can reach the very, the most senior levels in that organization and to give them the. In who they are and the clarity, what they want to be able to get there. And we do that through workshops, do that through leadership programs, and we can do that.

Free consulting work. If you are looking for help with any of that, drop me an email nycla@nicholasschoolco.com. The spelling’s not the easiest. So all the details are in the show notes results I get for clients. Clients have been promoted twice in the six months we’ve worked together. They’d been invited to join the board.

They’ve gone from redundancy to being offered three dreams. They’ve gone from being pushed out of an organization to going into bigger organization and a bigger role with a bigger pay rise and just a quote from a client that I particular. I’ve gone from the pit of despair. When I started working with Nick to just being really happy and she is an incredibly empowered leader.

Now, if you’re not quite ready for that, you can download my overwhelmed on fire guide the details that are in the show notes, but that really helps you [00:28:00] everyday to stay in your fire. So it helps you to clear your head. It helps you to come back to what’s important to you, and it helps you to have that most impact and influence every single day.

It’s a little Quip sheet that you can just go through and tick. So go and download that. Or you can subscribe to my newsletter, which comes out every Friday, which is a Roundup of the week. Really? So what’s going on in my world. What’s the blog for that week, a quick video, that’s going to help your particular subject.

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And you’re always going to have the one that release and doing that as well. Not only helps you, but it also means that we’re going to reach more women and we’re going to be able to start that revolution to helping female leaders, [00:29:00] to keep that fire, find their fire and keep it. Keep that passion, that purpose and excitement.

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