“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”

-A quote by author Karen Lamb.

This particular quote resonates deeply with me.

Not because it’s overly introspective, but because throughout most of my teens & early 20’s I thought this almost daily.

The thing is…

I never did anything about it.

I let it fester in the depths of my mind only to whisper to me every so often.

I didn’t want to admit the cold hard truth.

The truth that still makes my hair stand up on my neck just thinking about it.

I knew it deep in my core…

I was a procrastinator.

But it was a label I didn’t want to wear.

I made up all types of excuses to justify it to myself:

“I need pressure to perform well”

“Why does it matter when I start if it still gets done on time”

“I’m just faster than everyone else so I can wait last minute”

In hindsight I was just being lazy.

The worst part about it though:

It stopped me from doing tasks to my maximum potential.

This is hard for me to admit, but it’s what Building Utopia is all about.

We can’t build our ideal life by:

•Living the same way

•Repeating the same actions

•Thinking the same thoughts as yesterday

Or we’d already be living our ideal life now.

Things have to change.

And procrastination is one of them.

It isn’t something you’re born with, it’s a bad habit that can be overcome.

And this bad habit:

•Steals your time

•Slows your development

•Forces you to miss opportunities

It’s counterintuitive..

You think because you’re putting a particular task off, that it frees up time now.

But think about it.

How many times do you put a task off just to watch a movie, scroll through social media, or whatever else you do to pass time.

The reality of the matter is…

If you just did the task first and got it out of the way, you’d have more time to hit your next task, and so on.

You actually end up getting more done in less time simply by avoiding procrastination.

This leads me to the concept -Parkinson’s Law- named after C. Northcote Parkinson.

It states:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

What happens is we lack urgency when we have lots of time. (Most of us)

Think about this law for a second and how it applies to your own life.

Can you name a memory where you took your sweet time to finish something because you had too much time?

Ok good.

Now imagine for a second you finished it as fast as you could while maintaining quality.

2 things will become obvious:

1. You saved yourself a bunch of time

2. The quality of your work was 10X better

“Ya but Darion I only did it for an hour a day then went and got other tasks done.”

That’s not what productivity is.

Productivity isn’t doing 10 small things at once while slowly chipping away at them.

It’s about focusing in on one task at a time will full intention, completing it, then moving on.

Ok, now that we covered what procrastination is not & its negative impacts on our productivity, let’s dive even deeper to see if there’s any information on the root cause.

An article from Psychology Today stated:

Psychologists have identified various drivers of procrastination, from low self-confidence to anxiety, a lack of structure, and, simply, an inability to motivate oneself to complete unpleasant tasks. Research has also shown that procrastination is closely linked to rumination, or becoming fixated on negative thoughts.

Whenever I think back to any time in my life where I procrastinated heavily on something, it stemmed from self-doubt or laziness.

I either didn’t think I was capable of doing a good enough job or didn’t want to suck up the fact I wouldn’t enjoy doing it.

So, all this leads to the question:

How do we beat procrastination?

Surely there’s a way.

I want to share with you what’s worked for me on my self-improvement journey.

This 3-step system has gotten me to grow my online business to 5 figures, reach my fitness goals, and still have time to focus on writing this newsletter weekly.

So today I want to share it with you.

3 Steps to Beat Procrastination:

Step 1: Set Deadlines

Deadlines will apply pressure.

Pressure creates action, and action brings results (especially for people who procrastinate).

Make sure they’re:

•Realistic

•Specific

•Challenging

This applies directly to Parkinson’s Law we discussed earlier

Step 2: Prioritize the right tasks

Fruitless actions will waste more time.

Focus on ones that:

•Make you money

•Grow your business

•Improve your health

If it doesn’t do any of these, scrap it.

Step 3: Time block

Delegation creates a structure to follow.

Every morning:

•Open your calendar

•Write in your prioritized tasks first

•Make sure to give them enough time each block

Build your day around these, not the other way around.

These are the exact rules I follow daily, weekly, & monthly to get shit done.

It takes effort.

It’s not for the lazy.

But it works.

Quick Recap:

Parkinson’s Law:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

-C. Northcote Parkinson.

3 Steps to Stop Procrastinating:

Step 1: Set deadlines

Step 2: Prioritize the right tasks

Step 3: Time block

PS.

I’ve almost finished building out a goal setting Notion system to help you:

•Set clear goals

•Track them efficiently

•Actually accomplish them

•Structure your days properly

•Stop procrastinating for good

It’s based off the exact system I use which was inspired by Tej Dosa.

And I’ll be sharing it for free with all my newsletter subscribers.

Thanks again for being here,

Let’s stop procrastinating and go build our own Utopia.

See you next Thursday.