One late night long ago, I got up out of a warm bed, sat down at my little Ikea desk, and typed out an entire sales letter from start to finish.
That sales letter was the original CopyHour sales letter – and it went on to make me millions of dollars over its run.
Until recently, I would have told you that I was able to pump out that letter so quickly because I’d beaten procrastination through the use of deadlines.
In other words, I used to think that the way to force myself to do something work related (to not procrastinate) was to modify my behaviors.
A deadline meant my behavior changed – I started working (versus not working without a deadline present).
In the case of that very first CopyHour letter – I had a real deadline in the form of running out of cash. I needed to make rent.
But what I learned over the following decade is that for me, personally, procrastination has almost NOTHING to do with changing my behaviors.
- Deadlines don’t always work. If I don’t get something done before it’s “due,” I just don’t do it at all, or I’ll “turn it in” late. If a deadline does force me to do something, I just feel anxious and generally terrible (which isn’t sustainable and I’ll miss the next deadline for something else because of it).
- Being disciplined doesn’t always work. Getting up early, rigid scheduling, and saying “no”… it can help, but it ultimately fails. I feel like I could be focused, but just can’t force myself to sit down and start working.
I think that I used to focus so much on behaviors (and still default there all the time) because all the productivity books told me I had to X, Y, Z. I needed to build habits and use "hacks". Brian Tracy’s advice to “always work on the airplane when you’re traveling,” still rattles around in my brain.
But last week I wrote about how I’ve found it more helpful to think of Procrastination and Productivity issues as two completely separate things. I used to confuse the two. A deadline (or a timer) can help me be more productive – but it sure as hell won’t help me procrastinate less.
- Productivity is all about speed – moving faster when you are working.
- Procrastination issues are when you can’t sit down to work in the first place or get yourself to stay focused and working.
Having more awareness of whether I’m experiencing a productivity or procrastination issue makes it easier to address. For example, if I’m having no trouble working but I’m moving slowly and feeling distracted while I write – that’s a productivity issue. (Probably the “write about what you actually do” issue I described last week.) But if I’m delaying sitting down to write something I know I need to or should write – that’s a procrastination issue.
To be very clear: here’s how I’m defining procrastination:
Procrastination is anytime you know you need to do something work related, but can’t get yourself to do it.
It doesn’t matter if you have all day to work or only 1 hour to work each day. Procrastination is when there’s something important that you need to get done, but you’re just not able to force yourself to do it.
So this week, here’s what I’d like to do:
I’m going to talk about what I’ve done to help my issues with procrastination. If you’ve read my newsletter for a while now, you know that I’ve struggled at least a little bit with putting things off until the last minute – aka leaning on the behavioral change that deadlines can produce. You might have also noticed longer periods where a large amount of work comes flying at you with tremendous speed and quality (hopefully).
It’s hard to even quantify but when I don’t procrastinate I make a shit ton more money and feel better too.
My hope is that by showing you a little bit of what’s worked for me – you can unlock some of your own “hidden” potential too.
My guess is that there’s something deeper at play inside you (beyond behavioral changes that no productivity hack will help).
So let’s talk about it more tomorrow!
– Derek
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