Learn how to stop procrastinating with 3 questions that trick you into wanting to take action. But before you do that, you gotta be able to catch yourself in the act.

Because not all forms of procrastination look unproductive!

Fun fact: do you know what happens when you Google “how to stop procrastinating?”

You find a whole bunch of new ways to procrastinate and call it making progress.

In fact, let’s talk about the three most common ways I see entrepreneurs procrasti-working and three questions to ask yourself to help you break the habit. 

Watch here or scroll down if you prefer to read.

Most Common Procrasti-Quotes:

Probably the most common ways that I see entrepreneurs procrastinate are by saying:

• “It is just not the right time.”
• “I have to work on this first.”
• “I need to get this done.”
• “I’ll do this next month.”
• “I’ll do this next year.”
• “I’ve gotta make sure that all of these things are perfect.” 

And it’s all about this idea of perfect timing, like when entreprenuers say:

• “These things need to happen, or these things shouldn’t be happening.”
• “When everything is aligned and in perfect order, then I will take effective action on the things that matter most.” 

Tip #1: There is no such thing as perfect timing.

I am here to tell you that you’re never gonna figure out how to stop procrastinating if you don’t realize that there is no such thing as perfect timing, or the right time. 

Instead ask yourself, “do you want to do this?” Cool. Go ahead and do it. Or the latter….

“Do you not wanna do it?” Sweet.

Find an excuse, because here’s the thing. Your life is gonna be messy forever.

You will have kids, family members, obstacles, challenges, things that come up, or accidents.

All kinds of things.

If I waited until the perfect timing, I would still be waiting.

I would be working for somebody else right now because there is no such thing as good timing.

Something will always be happening.

Something will always be coming up and you have to make the decision or choice.

“Am I gonna make this happen regardless of the timing?” Or “am I just gonna wait until everything aligns?” 

I’m telling you right now, I’m a fan of the law of attraction.

To the extent that we take action. I’m a bigger fan of the law of action. Because even to the universe, action speaks louder than words.

If you wanna attract the right timing, guess what? Start moving and things will start falling into place.

You will realize that it was the perfect time for you to start taking action because things cannot get better, cleaner, figured out, or make progress until you actually start moving forward on them. 

I’m preaching a little bit here because this is such an important one for you to realize.

There is no such thing as perfect timing. There is only, I’m willing to take action or I’m not willing to take action. 

Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t say, “you know what, there’s something else I wanna take action on first.”

There have been times when I have put off goals, and things that I was working on because I needed to focus or prioritize something else.

That’s different. 

If it is the right timing for something, and your top priority, focus on that.

However, refrain from saying that the business is not the right timing.

Instead say, “that’s coming next.” Right?

That way you don’t get into the habit of constantly looking for perfect timing. You get more in the habit of saying, “this is the first thing, and this is the next thing. I plan to do this at this time.”

Then if you have a clear deadline, timeline, or indication of when that’s going to start, that’s going be best so that you’re not constantly putting it off.

Be careful with this one. I have to do this with my health.

I’ve had to say, “this is the right time for me to work on my health and my business has to move slow right now.”

If I’m not careful with that, it’s very easy for that to drag out and for my health to become me just procrasti-working and not actually reaching a goal. 

Tip #2: Organization is not bad.

Let’s move into number two.

The second way I see entrepreneurs procrasti-working (which is procrastinating and calling it work) is by organizing or over-organizing. 

I agree that trying to work in a crazy, chaotic environment is difficult to do.

Sometimes we need to organize our desk or even the files on our computer.

Other times we need to get our act together and get our backend systems figured out.

And sometimes that is a pure distraction from getting things moving in our business. 

So organizing is not bad.

But you need to know:

• Where do you draw the line so that you’re not over-organizing?
• How do you make sure you’re taking action while still getting things organized enough to continue to take action down the road? 

That’s your focus.

Not getting everything perfect, but getting everything good enough so that you can start moving forward.

Tip #3: Plan and research constantly.

Now, number three should be called procrasti-planning. 

This is when we plan and we research over and over again as we try to figure out every single step, question, and what if.

During this method we try to figure out what we’re doing tomorrow, next week, next month, six months from now, or even five years from now.

And until we have every little detail, we aren’t willing to take the first step. 

I want you to remember what we’ve discussed in previous blog posts.

Your business and the progress your business is going to make is like a foggy road.

If you’re trying to see the entire thing, you’re just not gonna be able to.

You cannot see what’s coming down the road until you drive the first stretch.

The first stretch is what you can see, right?

You can see three car lengths ahead of you.

Great. Get rolling on for those three car lengths.

Because once you roll to that point, guess what? You will see three more car lengths.

The road is going to unfold only as you travel it. 

So if you’re waiting for all of the details to fall into place and the fog to clear, you’re going to be waiting a long time.

Because, guess what? Business ain’t that clear. There’s a lot of fog. And there’s a lot of what ifs. Nobody knows what’s going to happen a year or five years from now.

You just gotta get rolling, get moving and allow things to unfold as they will. 

Now, let’s talk about the three questions you need to ask yourself to help break this habit, and help you figure out how to stop procrastinating. 

Question #1: What do I know that I need to be doing?

Get clear on the actions you know you’re supposed to be taking, but aren’t.

And here’s a tip: if you’re not sure what you need to be doing, you’re not procrasti-working.

You’re not procrasti-planning.

You’re not procrastinating.

You just don’t have a plan. You don’t know what to do. 

In that case, you just need to get support.

You have to figure out what is the right thing to be focusing your time and energy on so that you’re not procrasti-working on things that don’t matter.

We’re going to fill our time with something if we don’t have clarity on the right thing.

Question #2: What do I want to be doing instead?

So here’s the thing I know I need to be doing, but here’s the thing I want be doing.

I want to:

• Plan
• Research
• Organize
• Play on my phone
• Go for a walk
• Call a friend
• Paint my toenails

What is the thing that you want to do?

Analyze this by asking yourself the following two questions:

• What’s the thing I know I need to be doing?
• What’s the thing I really wanna be doing to procrastinate instead?

Question #3: What are all the reasons I actually want to do what I know I need to do first? 

Now there’s a couple things with this question.

#1: This question will help you to understand your reasons for wanting to take action.

Sometimes you gotta spend a little bit of time with understanding your reasoning.

You need to sit down and journal or talk it through. You may even need to talk yourself into wanting to take action by remembering your motivation, purpose, deeper reasons, or driving forces.

So take some time with that question, but notice what I said first, what are all the reasons I actually want to be doing?

This means that we’re going to use the thing we really want to do.

Kind of like the reward or the treat at the end. 

Once I do an hour, two hours or days worth of this work, then I’m gonna celebrate by painting my toenails, organizing my office, going for a walk, or playing on my phone.

When we do this, it starts to train our brain to just basically eat the frog or eat our vegetables before our dessert. 

#2: This question presses the importance of support.

Lastly, along with those three questions, you’ve got to get support.

If you’re struggling to figure out how to stop procrastinating you can’t move your business forward.

You need to make sure that you have systems of support set up in the form of:

• Education
• Accountability
• Coaching

This will make sure that you can learn the skills and master the skills necessary to move you and your business forward. A great program to help you with this is my free class, Healthy Hustle Roadmap. You can learn more about this below.

Are you ready to move you and your business forward?

If you’re ready to put the proper support and skills in place to move your business forward without burning yourself out, or trying to reach crazy deadlines, be sure to check out my Healthy Hustle Approach.

This free class, How To Use a Holistic Approach to Create a Profitable Business Without Burning Yourself Out will teach you the three mistakes small business owners are making and introduce you to the tools and strategies that will help you create reliable profits working less than 40 hours a week.

You can grab a free seat for that class by clicking below.

What about you, boss?

Share with us how you plan to stop procrasti-working.

Scroll down to share in the comments.