You’re reading this because you know the Monster. It preys on you daily, gobbling up your precious time, holding you back from all the things you want to accomplish, stomping on your dreams and laughing at your frustration.
The Procrastination Monster is real.
The good news is that by reading this you’re already doing something about it. Now it’s time to do the work.
What’s Your Big Project?
What do you want? Is it something small, like fixing a cracked tile in the bathroom, that will take only a few hours? Or are you itching to tackle something bigger, like starting a new exercise routine?
It’s okay to start small. There’s no shame in learning how to defeat the Monster by practicing with small projects.
If you go big, you should know that larger projects need to first be broken down into smaller ones that can be completed in an hour or less. We’ll bundle this “breakdown” into your very first day of work so the Monster doesn’t eat that up as well.
Large or small, we’re going to call this your Big Project because you’re going to accomplish something big even if the output seems modest.
Let’s get started…
Your First Block
The Procrastination Monster loves to snack on little distractions. Checking email. Doing laundry. Washing dishes. Calling a friend. If your schedule is littered with small stuff the Monster will greedily suck up all your time gobbling them down and you’ll never get to The Big Project that truly matters.
So we’re going to starve the Monster. First, how many hours do you think it will take you to complete your project? It’s okay if you’re not sure, and guessing is perfectly fine. But take some time and think it over. The important thing is to give it your best guess, and you’ll get better at it as you tackle more and more projects.
When you have the total number of hours for The Big Project estimated, divide it up into 15-minute blocks. For example, if you think fixing a broken tile in the bathroom is going to take you 3 hours, then your calculation will be:
3 hours / 15 minutes = 12 fifteen-minute blocks
If you have a calendar, planner, or schedule, erase everything from it for the next n days, where n is the number of 15-minute blocks from the previous calculation. In our example we would clear the next 12 days on your calendar starting tomorrow.
If you’re afraid you’ll lose track of the tasks you’re going to erase, write them down elsewhere or push them to the days after your blocks. Don’t worry. The laundry will get done. Your email can wait. Just make sure your calendar is clear for the required number of days.
For every day starting tomorrow, set aside a 2-hour block as early in the morning as possible. If you can make it the first thing you do in the morning before you have breakfast, brush your teeth, go to work/school, etc, great. Some things understandably cannot wait, like making the kids lunch and sending them off to school, but the earlier in your morning you create this block, the better.
Remember, the more stuff that creeps in between the time you wake up and your block, the easier it will be for the Monster to crush you. Don’t let it. Schedule your blocks as early as possible and set yourself up for a win.
If you’re like most people and have a job that requires you to leave early in the morning and you don’t have two hours, then create the largest possible block you can afford.
During these two-hour blocks of time you will be doing 15 minutes of work. If your block is from 8-10am, you will be working from 8:00-8:15. If you wish you may schedule email, laundry, coffee with friends, etc after your block, but leave the block completely free.
Once you’ve created all your blocks, you can move all your other tasks into the remaining space of your days. Push them as late as you can in the day to give your blocks as much space around them as you can, because you want to reinforce the message for yourself that the task in your blocks is the most important thing you will do each and every day.
What the hell am I going to do with the other hour and forty-five minutes, you ask? Don’t worry about that yet. Just schedule it. Now go out and enjoy the rest of your day.
Time to do Battle!
The day has come for you to kick the Procrastination Monster right in the teeth. As soon as you wake up, remind yourself that you only have one thing to do this morning: The Big Project.
That is the only thing that is important. The only thing that matters.
You’ve scheduled your block early enough in the morning so that you have almost nothing to do beforehand. To continue with our example, at 7:55 start getting yourself ready to work. If you’re fixing a tile, get your tools together. If you’re tackling something else get your computer, notepad and pen, whiteboard, yarn, blowtorch, etc assembled.
Begin working at 8:00 am sharp. If there is not a clock handy then set a timer on your phone or your watch for 15 minutes.
If your task is hard, or it sucks, or you’re dreading it, this is where the “small block” strategy comes in handy. You don’t have to worry about spending hours of drudgery working on your task, just 15 minutes. That’s it. You can work on ANYTHING for 15 minutes, all you have to do is start. Make a deal with yourself that you need only sweat it out for 15 minutes, and you can stop as soon as the clock hits 8:15.
The goal is to just get started. Starting is the toughest part, because if a job is put off long enough it begins to take on mountainous proportions. It looks harder, more painful, more intimidating. But once we start it suddenly becomes manageable. Realize that even if it’s awful it will only last for 15 minutes, and begin.
If you’re tackling a bigger task, your job for today, this all-important first day, is to break that task up into smaller, more manageable tasks. Keep drilling down and breaking those tasks into smaller subtasks until each one is no more than an hour.
When the clock indicates your 15 minutes are up, if you’re in the flow and don’t want to stop, keep going. Much of the time you aren’t going to want to stop. This is why it’s so crucial to just begin. Once we get past that initial pain of beginning, the work gets much easier. This is how grand, epic projects are completed: consistent work, every damned day. Yes, bigger projects require more than 15 minutes a day, but we’re starting small and creating a habit, and for now 15 minutes is more than enough.
Do this until the project is finished. You may feel the urge to take a day off. Don’t. It’s only 15 minutes. Taking even a single day off will open the door just a crack, just enough to allow the Monster to return. Slam the door, bolt it, and keep your precious momentum going.
The Burning Question
At this point you’re probably thinking, If I’m only working on my task for 15 minutes, why do I have to block out two hours?
If you’re reading this guide then you are probably a classic, full-blown, Stage 4 Procrastinator. If we add one more thing (The Big Project) to your already cluttered schedule, it’s likely that instead of working on your Project you’ll just do something else that’s on your schedule instead. Something easier. Something more fun. And you’ll tell yourself you’ll work on The Big Project in a few minutes. Which will turn into later. Which then turns into tomorrow.
And then the Monster is sitting his fat ass right in your lap again.
We’re going to break that cycle by making sure there’s nothing else for you to do BUT your Project. If your morning is completely open and you have nothing to do except one thing, it’s more likely that you’ll do that one thing.
Which leads us to the next step you can take if you’re not able to slay the Monster on your first try. If you find that clearing a block in your morning and having only the one task to do in the morning doesn’t prevent you from putting that task off, the next step is to clear your day. Completely.
If you cannot get your task done first thing in the morning when it’s the only thing you have to do in the morning, change your schedule so your Big Project is the only thing you have to work on for the entire day.
Go Time
You now have the entire process. Follow the steps below to take small steps towards completing your Big Project:
- Write down your task
- Estimate how long it will take you to complete the task and divide it into 15-minute intervals
- Clear your schedule for the number of days it will take to complete the task
- Block out a two-hour time slot every day, early morning, starting TOMORROW, preferably immediately after waking
- If the task is a large one, your first job tomorrow will be to break the task into smaller, 1-hour chunks and list all of them in an outline
- Wake up every day and work for at least 15 minutes on your task, no days off. If you want to keep going when your fifteen minutes are up, go for it, but you must work for at least fifteen minutes.
- Repeat until task is finished
It’s time for action. Get out your calendar and start now.
The Monster is there, waiting for you to take a break so he can drag you back to where you were yesterday. Don’t let him catch you. Keep going.