On Monday I couldn’t get going. I know it was Monday, but still. After an hour of making more tea and taking soft scrub to the sink to make sure it was good and shiny, I dropped the sponge and exhaled, deeply. I sat down, shut the door and did a mini meditation. First, I stopped judging myself for feeling lazy. Then, I asked myself if anything was bothering me. And last, I gave myself permission to forget my To Do list and do whatever I felt like.
And I got my answer.
I see this happen with clients all the time: You want work to feel rich, to be about your growth and your team’s growth, not just about the numbers or a nice resume. You want to be connected as a team, and feel focused. When things get tough, you plow through in service of productivity. Thing is, when things get tough is when you most need to pause and listen to your intuition. Because it’s when you step over your intuition in service of productivity, and push away distracting feelings, that you procrastinate. And worse! — when you have several people on a team doing the same thing, it can lead to huge breakdowns in communication.
In the end, I spent Monday doing paperwork that I needed to do anyway, and it was a very productive day. Not every day has that flexibility, I get it. But I coach my clients on catching themselves in those moments of judgment, and re-writing the script. So instead of continuing to lose time, they can re-connect with their ambition.
Here are the three steps again:
– Take “lazy” off your vocabulary list.
– Get curious. What’s the emotion in your procrastination? What are the thoughts connected to it?
– Imagine you didn’t have to do what’s on your list for the day. What would you do instead?
What blocking your productivity is often not where you would think to look. In my work, I help clients re-frame the situation so they discover what’s really getting in their way. If you feel like you or your team could be more effective, let’s chat.