Worksheets :::1:::
WARNING: This PDF is for your personal use only. You may NOT Give Away, Share Or Resell This Intellectual Property In Any Way All Rights Reserved Copyright 2012 Zach Browman. All rights are reserved. You may not distribute this report in any way. You may not sell it, or reprint any part of it without written consent from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. A note on the exercises: If you really want to be rid of procrastination - don t skip over any of these exercises, and don t just do them in your mind. The act of writing things down is a key part of the process - not just so you can reference it later, but because the act of writing helps you to get a clearer picture. Writing things down helps your half-formed and unarticulated thoughts more tangible. I ve made it easy for you by creating PDFs where you can write right inside them. You don t need to print these out, you don t need a pen and paper, you don t even need to open a separate document on your computer. Once you re finished, you can save each assignment with your answers in it. I also want to encourage you to do each of the exercises even if you don t think they re incredibly relevant to you. This program is structured in a very specific way where each assignment builds on the ones before it. If you skip over a section, it ll be harder for you to continue. So start by making yourself a promise to do ALL the exercises. :::2:::
Assignment 6: Anxiety and Overwhelm In this module we talked about the anxiety > avoidance cycle and how effective it is at keeping you stuck in the procrastination trap. To break out of it, you first need to get to the source of your anxiety. I ve included overwhelm as part of the title of this module. In reality, it s a form of anxiety - but it s such a major one that I thought it deserved special mention. Overwhelm Is having too much to do stopping you from starting? Overwhelm is the feeling you get when you re not sure you have the resources to cope with what you have to do. One tool for overcoming procrastination is simply to write down all that you have to do and to break it all into manageable chunks. It s much easier for you to imagine doing five. small simple tasks than one big complicated one. Step 1: Write down EVERYTHING you have to do on this project Get out a pad of paper or open a new document on your computer and in no particular order, just start listing everything you can think of that you ll need to do to finish the project. Step 2: Break down each task into sub-tasks... break those down into smaller sub-tasks and so on, until you have a clear picture of everything that needs doing. :::3:::
All tasks can be broken down into ridiculously small steps - break at down as small as you need to making sure to include anything that you re not accustomed to doing. (For example, if you have to mail something off, add going to the post office and buying stamps as a sub-task if that s something you don t usually do. You probably don t need to add getting dressed, putting on shoes, walking out front door, etc.) If there s an aspect you don t know how to do, add research how to as a task. Accept that you can t do it all right away. But knowing that it s all written down means you don t need to hold the entirety of the project in your mind, and are free to focus on doing each task one-by-one You probably won t get everything down right away and will think of other tasks or sub-tasks you hadn t considered before. Don t worry about it. You can add them to your list later. Step 3: Start working your way through the tasks one at a time. A friend of mine in Alcoholics Anonymous once told me her interpretation of what taking it one day at a time meant. She said that if she thought she had to give up drinking forever, the enormity of forever was more than she felt she could handle, so she was likely to just give up justifying it as I m going to give in eventually... might as well be today. But when she reminded herself I don t have to stop drinking forever, I just won t take a drink today it didn t sound so difficult. An old manager of mine used to often quote US General Creighton Abrams and say When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time Your list of tasks will take care of the big picture - focus on getting each thing done - one at a time. :::4:::
P Task sub-task sub-task...and so on :::5:::
Just Getting Started A lot of the time feelings of overwhelm will fade very quickly if you ll just get started - leaving you wondering why you resisted starting in the first place. Just knowing this doesn t help when you re in avoidance mode. So here are some ways to just get started. 1. Time Limited Exposure If something s uncomfortable, it s easier to face it if you know you only have to experience it for a short time. Whatever it is you re avoiding - work, starting a project, doing your taxes - can you face it and live with that anxiety for 15 minutes? What about 10 minutes? What about just 5 minutes? Choose an amount of time you can handle and tell yourself you re just going to work on it for that long and then you can stop, take a break an reward yourself. If you want to keep going, great. If not, that s fine you still accomplished what you set out to and got started. The (3 X 15) is designed to do just this - as a student wrote after taking a workshop with me: Hey Zach, it really works getting me started on tasks. Once I start the momentum takes over and I keep going. Thanks for the insights. But again, if even that s too much for you, scale it back and start with a point of success. 2. Give yourself some easy wins first You ve already seen how powerful small, immediate rewards can be for activating your drive. If you really have trouble getting started, add some easy tasks to the beginning of your day or work session. it could look like this: :::6:::
Goal 1: get out of bed Goal 2: brush teeth Goal 3: open computer Goal 4: review to-do s Goal 5: one (3 X 15) on writing By the time you get to the actual work, you ve already had a few successes and will feel much more driven. You can list your first easy goals here: If this is a big problem for you, add them to your daily tracker 3. Plan your to-do s the day before This is a huge one. If you know EXACTLY what you re going to do when you sit down to work, it s much easier to get started. Take 5 minutes at the END of your work session, and plan your next day. This is such an important one, I ve added it to your Daily Tracker. Ok, those are the tools for eliminating overwhelm. Many of them are already built into the (3 X 15) and the daily tracker, but you can use this worksheet as a reference if ever you re finding overwhelm is strongly contributing to your procrastinate. Now, on to some other fears and anxiety that cause procrastination: :::7:::
Fear of Failure Starting a business, writing a book, or putting anything you ve created out into the world is scary. What if it fails? What will people think of it? Some people would rather live with the illusion that something might be successful than put it out there and find out for sure whether or not it is. These fears are perfectly natural, but they don t have to keep you from taking action. The first step - as usual - is just to recognize that this is what you re doing. Are you endlessly editing and re-editing your web copy? Are you continuing to tweak your business idea for months before you put it out in the world? This is one area where successful people really stand out. They re not as concerned with perfect as they are with finished. Symbolic Meaning and Catastrophizing Sometimes we re afraid of failing because of the symbolic meaning we attach to failure. For example, the chain of thought in your head might sound like this If this book isn t a bestseller, that means that I ve failed, which means I m a terrible writer, which means I ll never be successful, which means I ll die poor and alone Wow. No wonder you re avoiding finishing that book. In your mind, your entire happiness is riding on it. If I look at my assumptions, I can see that the meaning I m attaching is not necessarily true. I can see that if my book s not a bestseller it could just mean that I didn t target the right audience... even if it s true I m not a world-class writer, that doesn t mean I ll never be successful... etc. :::8:::
Are you attaching symbolic meaning to the success or failure of your project? Write out your chain of thinking below: Now look at your assumptions. Are there any leaps you re making that aren t necessarily true? In the age of the internet, getting something out there quickly and then adjusting it based on feedback is far more effective than endlessly planning. You may find that one or two changes to your marketing can turn your failure into a success. When I was selling advertising in the yellow pages, my sales manager used to say go out and get a yes or a no, it s the maybe s that will kill you. What he meant was that he d rather get a clear no from a potential customer so he could stop wasting his time and move on to someone else, then have a customer string him along. It s the same thing with your project - if it s going to fail - it s better that you find out sooner so you can change it or start something new, rather than wasting months or years putting your energy into something that s not going to work. What are the positives of finding out quickly that it s not working (ie. I could finally put it behind me and work on X project I ve been thinking about. I d feel good cause I knew I d tried, I d get valuable feedback and be able to tweak it to make it work) Comment, then check :::9:::