Procrastination without definition
Why I seem to procrastinate on important stuff and how to fix it
I had a conversation with a coach recently. I explained that it seems crazy that sometimes I procrastinate on the things that I consider to be high value activities. Why the heck is that? I certainly don’t mind putting in work, I love to work. Is it self-sabatoge? Laziness? Or something else? After an extensive therapy-type Q&A here’s what I landed on:
I procrastinate on important items that lack definition or that I’m not fully committed to. Let’s start with the first, lack of definition. What do I mean? Well, if on my notion board (where I keep all my to-do’s (big and small) kanban style, I have a task for, let’s say “raise money” or perhaps something more specific... “launch a regulation CF campaign.” That’s huge and daunting and it’s also not really a task, it’s an outcome of a series of tasks. Using outcomes for goal, objective or priority setting is one thing, but to lay it out on your daily list is something else. So here’s my solve, I have to break things into really small pieces. The smaller the better. So I may have an objective, “raise $XXX in Q1,” but my task for the day might be to write out everything that needs to happen in order for this to happen. Constituent tasks may include (1) hire a lawyer; (2) find a platform; (3) research campaigns. But for someone as simpleminded as I, this too, is too ambitious. Let’s hop into what my tasks are to hire a lawyer: (1) find the most successful CF campaigns across all platforms, download their legal documents, and find their lawyers (2) deep research online and make a list of potential lawyers based on who’s got the most extensive content out there (3) talk to colleagues (founders, broker-dealers, platforms) and ask them who the best lawyers are (and who wasn’t good) (4) interview all the lawyers; and so-on. I wont bore you with the rest, but the thing I want to share here is that when I list as outcome as a task, or there is ambiguity around what needs to happen for me to get the satisfying hit of dopamine coursing through my veins as I drag and drop a kanban card from my “one thing” column to my “completed” column, I have to be generous with definition.
As to lack of commitment, or perhaps preparedness, this is easier to explain. Sometimes I will list something that is big and ambitious, maybe I’ve even broken out all the tasks into little pieces, I’ve prepared things correctly, but it’s not getting done. Why is that? It’s because I’m not all-in. I can have a great idea, but reservations lurking in the back of my head as to why it might not work or why the time isn’t right (this again, in part, falls on lack of definition, as if I defined things clearly enough, I would see overcoming some specific obstacles among my tasks associated with generating the desired outcome.
So, this is what I’be found so far. It’s not some tectonic plate shifting revelation, but maybe it will be helpful to someone else out there.