7 Proven Strategies to Beat Procrastination and Reclaim Your Time

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Christine Li, and this is episode number 271. I have noticed of late that the clients that I'm working with have a pattern of moving, moving, and then eventually ending up into a state of stress and overwhelm. And I love to teach people how to avoid getting into that upward climb into overwhelm because I do believe we have control over these matters. We have the ultimate say over how our nervous system behaves. And I share a lot of these strategies inside today's episode where I will give you 7 great strategies, easy to implement strategies that will help you to make sure your nervous system stays calm so you can just continue along your merry way without doing that escalation into overwhelm. Let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:13]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:21]:
Procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:24]:
Working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:41]:
When you start living within your full.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:43]:
Power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success Podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:56]:
I'm looking forward to sharing 7 strategies for rescuing your time from procrastination in this episode. We just recently cleared Procrastination Week. It's a national week, and now we are in the week of the Lunar New Year and we're moving from the Year of the Wood Snake to the Fire Horse. So there's been a lot of content on social media lately about the fact that we need to really leave and let go and release everything that has been heavy or holding us back in the year of the Wood Snake. It's kind of like shedding our snake skin so that we can really move powerfully and freely and vibrantly into the new year according to the Lunar New Year. So I thought I'd participate and help give you a little bit of a guide, a nudge towards saying procrastination is no longer my friend. It's no longer something I'm gonna need in my day-to-day life because procrastination is either causing you to feel like you're standing still or you're being stuck, or you're literally headed in the wrong direction. You have a goal that's headed in the right direction and you are deciding to turn left.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:15]:
So we're no longer going to be attracted to the idea of procrastination. And I'm going to suggest 7 strategies to take you in the right direction. The first strategy is to get good at saying no. Chances are, if you are constantly thinking, I need to procrastinate, or I want to procrastinate, or I want to avoid my responsibilities, chances are you may be saying yes to too many things and some of the wrong things. So get a little bit more bold with your own communication, with your own representation of what you actually do want to do and don't want to do. I think that will save you a lot of stress because your schedule will— the more you do this, the more you say yes to the right things and no to the wrong things, your schedule will become more in flow. It will be more appealing to you. You won't be dreading anything on your calendar.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:16]:
Of course, we don't necessarily have full control over these things, but in the areas where you do, I would love for you to up your communication skills and say no when you just don't have the time, you don't have the bandwidth, you don't have the desire to do a certain thing or two. So say no more often. The second strategy is connected to the first strategy. I would love for you to avoid filling in all the blank spaces in your calendar, in your schedule, in your day-to-day process. Allow yourself room in between appointments. Allow yourself a little bit of extra buffer time before you have to get to pick up your kid or go to the airport or, come home with the groceries. Allow yourself some of that time to maybe just relax, to do some meditation, to pause and think and daydream, maybe scroll some social media, whatever is restorative to you. If you consistently say yes to everything and if you consistently fill in all the blank spaces in your calendar, you're gonna be attracted to procrastination.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:30]:
You're going to feel like you're overwhelmed every once in a while, and we're just going to try to eliminate those instances as best as we can. The third strategy is to prioritize your nervous system. And that means instead of feeling like you have to be a productivity machine all the time and that you're running behind and that you're not performing to your potential, instead of talking to yourself like that, you're going to reflect, how am I feeling? Is my heart okay? Is my body all tense and nervous and vibing a little too high? Am I feeling panicky? And if you are any of those things, you're going to take a few minutes and you're going to put your hand on your heart and you're going to slow down and you're going to take 3 breaths and just clear the air. Clear your system of that extra layer of stress. You can maybe hear in the sound of my voice that I've slowed myself down even in describing these 7 strategies. Now, I could run wild like a fire horse and keep doing this at that rate, but I also have higher-level control over my nervous system. I can say to myself, I can talk more slowly, I can talk more softly, I can pause, and I will still get to the finish line. You're still gonna end up hearing all 7 strategies.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:01]:
It is okay. We, in many ways, need to be less afraid of time passing. And when we're less afraid, we're more clear, and we actually have more time to use. So don't be afraid of paying attention to your nervous system, telling yourself to slow it down and clear things up so that your nervous system is not always fried out and panicking and stressing. We don't need that feeling all the time. That actually should be very rare as we go forward. The fourth strategy that I have for you is when you are feeling panicky, decide that that's just one way of seeing your current circumstances. Panic is definitely one avenue that we can move through to our goals, but it's generally not a pleasant one.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:51]:
It generally makes us feel really tired afterwards. It generally causes our thinking to be a little bit more scrambled. But if there's a panic route to get through, there's also a route of greater calm, of greater confidence, of greater organization. Typically of greater mindfulness. So always remember, if there's one path, there is 100 more paths that you can consider so that you can again be in charge of your nervous system. You can decide what is the best way through, and you could just say, I'm gonna do this competently, confidently, and calmly. So remember all the Cs. I'm competent, confident, and calm.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:34]:
And until you reach that state, Maybe you wanna pause and decide, I need to get myself into a proper starting mode before I move on because I don't want the panic to deepen. I wanna rein my nervous system back in so that I can think and I can proceed. The fifth strategy is a beautiful strategy. You wanna ask for help wherever possible. If there's someone around to help you, grab them and say, hey, listen, do you have 5 minutes? If there's someone you can call and just say, listen, I'm feeling a little worked up about this project, do you mind talking it through with me before I start? Do that. And know that asking for help is no sign of weakness at all. It's actually putting love into the world. It's giving somebody else the opportunity to rise.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:26]:
It's giving yourself the opportunity to relax and then that cycle just continues. That person then feels it's okay to ask for help from somebody else. And then you feel like you're freed of your burdens, and then you have more energy to help someone else as well. There is really no use for all of us to stay in our individual silos being stressed out of our minds. I don't think that's a fun vision for society. I envision a society where People know how to regulate their nervous system. They feel like they have all the time they need to do delightful things, and they feel very open-hearted and willing to help their friends, families, neighbors, and strangers. Now, that's my view of a beautiful world.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:16]:
The 6th strategy that I have for you is to get good at tracking your time usage. You don't have to be obsessional about this. You don't have to do this perfectly, but I do recommend having a quick check-in with the schedule every once in a while throughout the day. I have found that this has helped me to just not get too in my head about things and to make sure that I keep myself moving when I do need to be moving. I actually have a free download today for you to help you begin tracking your time if you're not used to doing this. You can get that free download by going to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/time. T-I-M-E. Again, it's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:07]:
It's a really simple piece of paper. It's just the hours of the day listed for you with blank boxes. So you can fill in your boxes with your plans and then you can review at the end of the day, how did my day go? Did it go according to my plan or did time get away from me? And you just wanna be kind to yourself when you're beginning with this kind of time tracking exercise and say, oh, it didn't go as I had expected. But then you try it again with a brand new sheet the next day and you see, oh, I've become more mindful all of a sudden. Of where my time is going. And then you have the opportunity to rein it back in to say, oh, I'm gonna grab these 5 minutes because 5 minutes is valuable. Let's use it. Let's track this time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:54]:
Let's get this project done in a quicker amount of time, a faster amount of time than I originally thought. And then again, you're saving time repeatedly and then you get to feel more calm, more accomplished, more proud of yourself. It's all good. The very last strategy that I have to share for you today is to choose to do meaningful work. Work that is meaningful to you, that aligns with your values, that causes you to feel really great about yourself, that causes you to feel like you're not wasting your precious time and this precious life. Do work that is meaningful to you and you're going to be excited. You're going to feel attracted. To getting things done.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:40]:
And you won't, again, feel the need to sink into procrastination and feel like you have no time on your hands. You've got tons of time. All you have is time. What I'm trying to help you do is decide you've got the wherewithal as well. That's the formula. You need to feel like you've got what it takes, and then you've gotta use the time that you have. That is a simple but true recipe for great productivity, great self-esteem, and everything else that is good. I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:11]:
Go use these strategies. Be bold. Don't be afraid of anything. And give me some feedback. Let me know how everything is going with your productivity, your clutter, your schedule, your confidence. I would love to hear. All you need to do to reach me is go to Instagram. I'm @procrastinationcoach there.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:30]:
And just drop me a direct message and I would love to converse with you there. I will see you next week with another wonderful episode on the Make Time for Success podcast. Take care. Bye-bye. Happy New Year.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:43]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:48]:
If you enjoyed what you've heard, you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:50]:
Can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:14]:
Episodes you've been listening to.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:15]:
And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time For success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:23]:
Talk to you soon.