I’ll admit it: I was stumped on a topic for today. Generally, something sparks an idea for a blog post. I keep a list of videos I have watched on YouTube. I write myself a note if I hear a client or colleague mention something that interests me and would be valuable to you. Sometimes I find a potential topic in my LinkedIn feed.

But I have nothing today.

And I am procrastinating on finalizing a presentation I am giving in two weeks, which is starting to stress me out, because I am not normally a person who saves things until the last minute.

Maybe you’ve had days like this?

Procrastinating

We all procrastinate from time to time. It’s healthy. We know we need to do something, but instead we noodle on it. We take a walk, take a nap, make some soup – whatever. Often, we get a good idea when we do something else and this gets us moving forward.

To be clear, I am pro procrastination in many cases. Doing “nothing” can be very good for creative thinking and for our mental health.

New York Times bestselling author and podcast host Mel Robbins says that procrastination is a form of stress relief. Our brain isn’t deliberately sabotaging us – it’s actually trying to help us.

I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel a little better about the time I have spent not writing this blog post. 

Planning

Sometimes the issue is that you don’t have a plan. You may have a big goal, or a general direction you want to head in, but you haven’t taken the time to write down a plan for achieving your goal, broken down into tasks with a timeline. 

If you don’t know what you should be doing, it is easy to get distracted and go down the YouTube rabbit hole, or start organizing your closet. 

Or, you may find yourself starting to feel completely overwhelmed. In this situation you definitely need a plan. As Michael Port says, “Overwhelm is caused by not knowing what to do, not by having too much to do.” 

Most entrepreneurs love a good planning session. Mind maps, white boards, and brainstorming are FUN for many of us. It doesn’t even feel like work. (At least it doesn’t for me.)

Pushing through

If you’ve given yourself some time to goof off and created your plan, now is the time to get to work. Start by doing one small thing to get yourself in motion. The first step is often the hardest. 

After that, do one more small thing. 

And then one more. 

We can procrastinate a bit, come up with a plan, and then start executing on that plan. We can push through the procrastination.

We can do this. 

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash