How to Stop Procrastinating in 6 Steps
The Amplified Impact Podcast
February 14th, 2023
Stop procrastination in its tracks.
On today’s episode of the podcast, Anthony takes on everyone’s common struggle: procrastination.
He goes on to provide a simple 6-step process to help you break the pattern and start making meaningful forward progress towards your goals.
He shares his tips for becoming aware of when you’re procrastinating, reclaiming your intention, defining your objective, setting tiny goals, and much more.
Listen in to this powerful episode on stopping procrastination and getting back on track towards your goals.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“We all struggle with procrastination. It doesn’t matter how hyperfocused you are, it doesn’t matter how great your systems are.” – Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony: [00:00:00] Hey, what’s up? All you beautiful people. Welcome back to the podcast Today, I want to talk. How to stop procrastinating in six steps. I want to share this because I think we all struggle with procrastination. It doesn’t matter how hyperfocused you are, it doesn’t matter how great your systems are. It doesn’t matter how high your discipline, your motivation, or any of that stuff.
Anthony: Like eventually, you are going to struggle with procrastination, putting something off, and so. Here’s a simple six step process that I find very, very helpful to break the pattern, to interrupt the, the momentum that I’ve accrued in the wrong direction, to turn it around and start making forward progress towards my goals.
Anthony: So number one, you have to become, That you’re delaying, like awareness is everything. Your brain tricks you into procrastinating or into delaying or into just getting distracted. It does this often without you even becoming consciously aware of it. This is [00:01:00] why I’m a big fan of having an intention maintenance.
Anthony: Protocol, which I, it’s very simple. I, that sounds like a really fancy term. an attention maintenance protocol, but really all it is is having some way of interrupting the pattern to break you out of just. going through the motions autonomously. The way that I do that is by programming a question, what’s my outcome into my phone to go off randomly throughout the day?
Anthony: And that question, it pulls me out, and it gives me a moment, regardless of what I’m working on, to reflect and say, okay, right now, what’s my goal? What am I working towards? Why am I doing this? Like, if that was to go, if the alarm was to go off right now, I would look at it and reflect, why am I making this podcast?
Anthony: Why am I talking to you right now? Why am I taking the time? Is it just to go through the motion to the check the box to say I did it, or am I actually trying to make an impact on you and share some information, share a framework, shame, share a resource that will help you build a better business, invest in real estate, or just become a [00:02:00] better version of yourself.
Anthony: Like depending on how I answer that, it’s going to, it’s going. Influence how I show up, right? With what kind of intentionality, what kind of focus, what kind of energy. And so sometimes we just go through the motions and we need to interrupt the pattern and have a way of reclaiming, our, our intention.
Anthony: And so, number one, to stop procrastinating, you need to become aware that you’re delaying. Number two is that you need to reclaim your intention, which is just to say, you know what? I was distracted. I was playing chess on my computer. I was watching that YouTube video. I didn’t need to be doing that, or I was doing this other thing.
Anthony: But here’s what I’m going to do now. And you get out a pen, you get out a piece of paper and you write down what it is that you’re going to do. You write down your intention. You say, okay, for the next 20 minutes, I’m going to only focus on my emails. I’m going to answer 10 of them. Here’s what I’m going to do if something gets in my way.
Anthony: So this is creating an if, when, then statement. So if somebody knocks on my door, then I’m going to say, Hey, leave me alone. I need five more minutes or 10 more minutes. [00:03:00] If I have the urge to look at my phone, I’m going to, turn it off. If somebody. pings me on slack, I’m going to exit out of that program.
Anthony: And if then statement has been shown to increase the likelihood that you follow through on your stated behavior by over 70%, it’s powerful. So step two in overcoming procrastination is to set your, to, oh, I’m sorry, to reclaim your intention, to create your if then when statement number three, we’re going to define the objective.
Anthony: What is the. Like, what, what are we trying to strive for, right? Like, I need to define winning. What does winning look like? Because a lot, a lot of times we procrastinate on things because they’re, we’re unclear about what we need to do and how we need to do it. And because that’s uncomfortable, because we don’t like moving into a world of, lacking clarity, the first thing that we need to do is get really clear.
Anthony: We need to clean the windshield and say, where am I going? How am I going to know when I get there? So step number three, define the objective. Step number [00:04:00] four. Tiny little goal. Just a tiny little goal. That’s it. Like what’s the next tiniest small step that you could take towards the thing? If that’s, I need to spend, I need to get through all my emails.
Anthony: Cool. Just set the one goal of, I’m going to answer one email, one, right? Set a small goal that you know you can hit so that you can start building momentum because again, and again and again, I come back to this core concept as first principle of the universe, which is at an object at rest, tends to stay at rest.
Anthony: So your very first goal is to get your button to motion and take the tiniest first step. Get that moment because momentum is the cure to procrastination. Okay, repeat that to yourself. Momentum is to cure to procrastination. So we’re going to set a tiny goal. Number five. We’re going to start our timer. I got my little Pomodoro timer right here.
Anthony: I’m going to set my timer. I’m going to say, I’m going to answer one email. I’m going to answer 10 emails in five minutes, or whatever it’s going to be. Whatever your tiny goal is, you’re going to set your timer. [00:05:00] I’m going to turn it on. And then finally, step number six. So you’re going to do the thing, and that is how you overcome procrastination in six.
Anthony: So I hope this helps you guys. Use this, write it down. Put it on your computer. Put it on your phone. Put it somewhere that you can refer back to it next time that you feel that you’re, you’re procrastinating. Next time that you become aware that you can implement these steps, turn the tide and start building momentum towards your greatness.
Anthony: If this served you, if you enjoyed anything out of this, make sure to share it with somebody else. share it on social media. Hit me up, DM me, pam, me. I’d love to have a conversation with you guys and hear about what you’re building. So as always, you know, I appreciate you guys, truly, you, you guys are rock stars, so stay hyper-focused, my friend.
Anthony: I’ll see you in the next episode.
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