All The Things I’m Putting Of Till Tomorrow

Ev Chapman
December 22, 2022
2 min read

Unpopular Opinion: Procrastination has nothing to do with your motivation (or discipline) levels.

I constantly defer tasks on my list to tomorrow. So much so that I created a list in my daily planner called 'All The Thing I'm Putting Off Till Tomorrow.' At first, it was a joke, but it's become a key way of noticing patterns in my behaviour.

Rather than beat myself up over all the things I'm putting off, instead I ask myself WHY?

Here's the process I use when things are starting to pile up:

Stop & Notice. Most of the time we are just busy that we never actually take time to stop & think about what is happening. I use short daily & weekly reviews as circuit breakers to do this noticing work.

Ask Why. Once I'm in this mode I ask myself one simple question... WHY? Why am I putting this off? Is the task too big, not defined enough, or am I waiting on someone else? The answer almost always reveals a roadblock I was just not aware of until I took notice. If I never stopped I'd still be beating myself up rather than finding the solution.

Take Action. Now I understand the actual roadblocks I can then start to clear them. If a task isn't defined enough, I define it. If I need more information I schedule a call with someone. Action starts to happen when you clear roadblocks.

And it works. I defer fewer things till tomorrow, I've learned more about how I uniquely work best & I feel like a total BOSS clearing things from my list each day.

Lesson: Stop beating yourself up & just kindly ask yourself why

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