Hey Dan here and in this video I want to share how I overcome creative
procrastination. This isn't a strategy to use for dealing with little things like
getting the dishes done but a strategy to use to ensure that you do follow
through with starting and finishing larger creative projects now if you
don't know me yet if you're new to the channel here a few things to know about
me is number one I'm a guy with ADHD and number two if you're into myers-briggs
personality types I'm an ENFP two aspects of personality
ADHD and being an ENFP that are not exactly mutually exclusive from
procrastination shall we say so by default procrastinating is something
that definitely comes to me and when it comes to creative projects like writing
a book filming a video anything like that most people regardless of your
personality in day-to-day life tend to have some level of procrastination so
there's a few reasons this happened one of which is just natural preparation
your unconscious going to work trying to think things through and actually
prepare so I know for myself before I actually get on camera even though I
don't have a script and often like in this video I have no notes there's
nothing in front of me that I am doing mental preparation so maybe before
filming when I'm going for a walk or taking a shower I'm thinking about the
video and it's away writing it or scripting it let's say unconsciously and
I know when I was writing books and will be writing again in the future that this
was a lot of my process I would think about what I wanted to write the next
day and then the night before in the morning of I would be processing
unconsciously what I'd be writing and then when I sat down it was a lot easier
but that's not the strategy here that I use to ensure I actually follow through
the way I approach this kind of creative procrastination is to anticipate it and
then to plan my days around it let me give you an example and that example
will be today or many other days where I plan to film videos for you guys here on
YouTube know what happened to me so so many times in the past where I'd end up
wasting a whole day and not get any filming done so I would give myself a
short window for filming I remember this came up when I had some
staying with me a family member of mine for a couple of months and at that time
I wasn't so comfortable filming with other people not even in the room but in
the apartment and so having someone there I then asked them dif they could
go out for a little bit during the day right hey can you go out for a couple
hours I need to do some filming and what would ultimately happen is there was
this lingering pressure that hey this person was gonna come back soon and I
wouldn't have enough time to let's say go through the procrastination phase to
get ready to film by time I was almost ready to film I'd be looking at my watch
thinking ah they're gonna be home in an hour you know what there's no point even
beginning to film and then the day would be a bit of a write-off of course having
someone stay with you isn't the only time that you can be interrupted in the
middle of your process this happens to me on some days where I'll have a group
coaching call scheduled at say 1 p.m. and it's 10 a.m. and I want to start
filming but especially right now we're in Spain or in a new apartment we just
got to to take some time to figure out the lighting figure out where in the
apartment to film and all that sort of stuff not to mention you know the
dreaded having to actually shower and do some kind of shaving and all that stuff
as well it's just a lot of work that goes in and if you spend that first hour
say getting everything set up and then you look and again you have a meeting
coming up what ultimately can end up happening is you don't end up setting up
and then starting to film in my case right it's filming and so what I try to
do now as much as possible is number one anticipate that they're set up time to
everything some projects have less set-up time than others for instance
writing is often just turning on a laptop whereas filming has more to
anticipate but also that there's a built-in procrastination time you know
today I went and I walked unnecessarily to the grocery store to buy a few things
I watched a bit of a TV show which is totally not what I should be doing on a
Monday morning on a work morning I had a couple breakfast way too much coffee but
I'm aware enough now of my own patterns to know that that's my we could say
procrastination time but maybe a better label is like anticipation time that's
how I prepare for creative projects that's how I'm getting ready basically
and if today was set up where now it's what for 4:30 when I'm actually
filming here if today was set up where I had meetings even from 3:00 there be no
filming getting done today and a huge part of this day would have been a
write-off I would have went through that procrastination warmup anticipation time
and then when it actually came time to film wouldn't have actually got into it
and then the day would have been a write-off at least in terms of the
filming side of things so what I try to do now is whenever I have creative
projects that I think I'm more likely to need some of that anticipation time I
give myself the entire day to do it I don't make plans in the evening I don't
have plans in the afternoon and I basically say to myself hey you're going
to get this done before the day ends and if you need a two three four hours to
anticipate to mentally prepare for it then so be it but ultimately once you
get into it you'll get into the flow and get it done
I know that's very true for myself with filming once I get everything set up
once I get over that initial sort of block then I'm able to film three four
sometimes five or more videos in a day but it took me a long time to realize
this and to not only anticipate that I need that time but not to feel guilty
about it not to feel bad like oh I didn't get right to work therefore I
screwed up the day or something then I feel bad about the procrastination which
then puts me in a bad headspace and then I don't actually start getting the work
done which obviously creates a really bad pattern and can end up where weeks
go by without any kind of filming now some of you especially if you've been in
my free freelancer program or you know some of the training I've done around
productivity and getting things done might be a little confused right now
because you're thinking then like one of the things you taught us is that when
you were actively writing books and I've published quite a few books so I got
really disciplined at that time as I would write two hours in the morning and
it was a set time there was no procrastination time there was no
lead-up time or anything like that and this advice I'm giving now is quite a
bit different and yes that's completely true both approaches work for different
things so what I actually planned to be filming today is not this video on
procrastination but a video series on adult ADHD and
it's a series that's going to go quite a bit more in-depth than I sometimes can
do in a single video it's a series that's going to go into some territory I
don't usually touch on and it's because of these new challenges in it that it's
something I'm not exactly comfortable with yet and I'm still having to wrap my
head around how to present some of the material because of that there is that
procrastination this lead-up time that I need where so if I was filming a regular
video on a topic I was really comfortable with and that I talked about
all the time I may not need that lead time so that's the main difference
between these two if there's something that's a creative task but a little more
routine so for example when I answer you're asked to end questions on my
podcast I do these about 30 minute of recordings all improvised you know I'm
not taking notes before about how I will answer anything like that
and that's something that is I would say creative and is on the spot and I
probably would procrastinate years ago but now I'm really comfortable doing and
so those sorts of creative tasks you know writing every day if you're already
in the flow and you're writing material you're really comfortable with I would
say schedule those in don't give yourself all this build-up
procrastination or anticipation time just jump into them and you can build
that habit but something that's newer that you're not quite sure of the
material that's maybe a little intimidating and you think maybe I'm
gonna need time to process this to think it through those are the types of
creative projects that I do give myself entire days to really not only wrap my
head around and make sure I do it but ensure there's no excuses ensure there's
no way to weasel my way out of it because sometimes the things that are
uncomfortable creative projects or maybe a bit worried that we won't do well that
will fail that we won't know how to do it and perhaps unconsciously not only
can we procrastinate but we can find ways to maybe skip over that video
series or just oh not have time for that there's an important meeting and
ultimately never get that stuff done let me know in the comments if you think a
strategy like this will work for you as well
when it comes to overcome procrastination and getting your
creative projects done leave your answer down in the comments I read every
comment that comes in and I make sure to respond to every comment that's at least
left in the first couple days of a new video going up thank you for watching
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