Ep. 145: How to get unstuck

In this podcast episode, Peter and Dave discuss strategies for overcoming procrastination and getting started on important tasks. They explore various factors that contribute to procrastination, including energy levels, prioritization, and the importance of managing one's schedule effectively. The conversation touches on productivity techniques like the Pomodoro method and the value of self-compassion when dealing with procrastination. They emphasize the importance of understanding personal energy patterns and creating a balanced approach to task management.

This week´s takeaways:

• Recognizing and working with your natural energy patterns throughout the day can significantly impact productivity. Tackle complex tasks when you're most alert, and incorporate breaks to maintain energy levels.
• Organize tasks based on priority and context (e.g., grouping similar activities together). This approach can help create a more efficient workflow and reduce the mental burden of constantly switching between different types of tasks.
• Be kind to yourself when facing productivity challenges. Techniques like the Pomodoro method, breaking large tasks into smaller steps, and planning your week in advance can help overcome procrastination and increase overall productivity.

Tune in to elevate your productivity game and achieve a harmonious work-life integration.

Chapters

• 0:05 Overcoming Procrastination and Boosting Productivity
• 8:15 Effective Time Management Strategies

Transcript

Peter: 0:05

hello dave, how are you today?

Dave: 0:07

data very good, very good. Glad to get this started after the conversation we were just having yeah, me too, me too, because the topic today is well, procrastination, or or I think we were gonna maybe it's how to get started when you're stuck. I think I'd prefer that to procrastination, but it ended up being kind of recognition of all of this being an interpretation of procrastination and what to do about it.

Peter: 0:37

Yeah, it's like why are you putting this important task off? Or even this not important task? If it's not important task, there might be good reasons to put it off. So let's focus. Why are we putting this important task off? Or even this non-important task? If it's not important task, there might be good reasons to put off. So let's focus. Why are we putting this important task off?

Dave: 0:49

the next task off exactly well and I think one of the things is we were kind of articulating some thoughts about this. Is the realization there's so much out there about procrastination, how to resolve it. Or Realization there's so much out there about procrastination, how to resolve it, or writer's block, or how to get more done in a day, and all of these things and a lot of sort of my realization over the many years of lots of different productivity hacks some that work and some that never really did is the answer doesn't help. There's something more fundamental. You know, there's a, there's something beyond. It's not just I don't want to do this next thing.

Peter: 1:29

Yeah, there's um that, that moment when the stars align, when your energy levels are right, that the you you feel engaged and interested in the task that you need to undertake, and you've got the space in your calendar and it's like an open highway in front of you and you can just drive straight on down. That's that perfect moment where procrastination is the last thing in your mind. You can sit down and just get on with it and just get started. But why do we struggle to find that? And the number of productivity hacks to achieve all the things I just described Don't always.

Dave: 2:09

I find, from what you've just described, the one thing that stands out and is probably I've noticed in myself and those around me the one of the things that really hits you hard is energy levels. And I think, if I just think you know simple things like we're spending all of our time in front of a screen through the day, then our energy levels are falling through the day. Of course, it's difficult to get the next email done or pick up the report that you need to edit and update or change or whatever it might be. We need to manage those energy levels, those energy levels. So when we're, when we're leading online workshops, we're creating lots of spaces to get up and move around and just refresh the energy, the oxygen in the brain. Literally getting up, moving around, so fresh oxygen goes to our brain, fresh blood goes through the brain, drops off. A bit of fresh oxygen allows people to focus a little bit longer, to stay engaged a little bit longer we so often forget a little bit longer we so often forget that yes, deep in the conversation.

Peter: 3:08

Three hours later, and oh, yeah, yeah.

Dave: 3:14

Well, and it's little weird things Like one of the things that I've found is the best time for me to go and do exercise is somewhere around lunch, and of course I never do because you know you either do at the beginning of the day and I am not a beginning of the day, get up and do exercise kind of guy, and if you try and get it to the end of the day you're blown like, you're wiped out and something's not going to happen there. But when do we create time where so many of us work remotely?

Peter: 3:43

hopefully we're learning to create spaces in the middle of our day to re-energize yes, yeah and uh, I, I know, and I I was actually told by, uh, one of my, uh, one of my co-workers this week that I need to do that a little bit more because I'm looking a little uh, was that the grumpy feedback?

Peter: 4:04

you're not happy I think it was. Uh, it was right. After my comment about this is meeting number 12 of the day, and I've got at least three more back to back well, and I think that's something that we have to control right.

Dave: 4:18

so is I, and I I, anytime I look at these sorts of you, know my own productivity and my own schedule is how do you actually create the space there? And because, again, getting outside, taking a walk around the block fresh air, little bit of wind, rain or sun on your face you come back. I don't think there's anybody that doesn't come back with a little bit of a different perspective, anybody that doesn't come back with a little bit of a different perspective.

Peter: 4:47

Yeah, it's going out getting that fresh air, feeding, as you say, oxygen to the brain, doing something else. Putting the phone down, I think, is a massive piece. I think I was even reading an article on that. I mean, there's so many of them around. But if your idea of a break is to pick up your phone and look at the different screen screen you've been looking at all day and start scrolling through um, whatever version of short form minute long videos, it is, then that that is not going to help your mind relax.

Dave: 5:14

Yeah, it will suck up a lot of time, but it won't well, and and I find that quite interesting because that's to I think we had the conversation of what happens if I choose to do something which I find more interesting relaxing, entertaining, whatever it is. Next, and my first thought there is if I'm choosing, that's a prioritization thing. If I prioritize my kid's birthday party over what I have to do in terms of work, that's not procrastination, that's prioritization and responding to that. If I go for a long walk to re-energize, it's prioritization over procrastination. But if I pick my phone up and get stuck in that whatever short form video, that is procrastination. Now I'm doing something that's not moving me forward. That's not a better thing than I was going to do. But they say distraction is something that just I'm filling time rather than doing what I need to do.

Peter: 6:19

And then it can be worth looking at like, well, why am I doing that? Why am I doing filling, just filling time? Like if time is our single non-renewable resource that's so precious, why do I want to fill it with other things other than something that potentially would move me forward or be valuable? And so what causes that?

Dave: 6:43

the why are you procrastinating? Question, right, I mean, I, I guess one of the. So here's why I guess that comes to mind. Number one is I think we all procrastinate. It's it's really really hard to stay focused and engaged from one task to the next, even if we're alternating and trying to raise levels of energy and things. It's just being focused.

Dave: 7:07

I always think of that as those different levels in your brain there is. You know, think of levels of listening. And whenever I teach the levels of listening, level one is you're barely listening, you're kind of social listening. Level two and level three is like you're really engaged, high level of energy required when you're really engaged. It's easy to be level one listening. It takes increasing amount of effort to become level two and level three listening. Well, the same is true for getting work done. It becomes increasingly hard, it takes energy and so on. So we have to. I think part of that recognition of procrastination is A we all do it and that's not a big deal. And we should be kind to ourselves when we find we look back over the last 20 minutes and realize we've been procrastinating. And maybe the other one is we always talk about prioritization, but even that's difficult, because prioritization we can't just do the next highest priority. The next highest priority, because if our energy isn't there, we're not going to get where we need to be.

Peter: 8:10

Yes, yeah, and that's something when we talk about the productivity hacks. When I look at my to-do list, it's all nicely prioritized. This is the most important urgent thing that you should be working on right now. This has to get done.

Dave: 8:27

Do you ever end up shuffling your list? Instead of doing any of it, you're just reordering it.

Peter: 8:37

Occasionally, when I've got the energy and I'm focused, it can be very valuable to have that. I find actually just having the list to be the more valuable sometimes than even the prioritization list, to be the more valuable sometimes than even the prioritization. Just getting it out of my head and written down and put in a list, even if I end up pushing it off to a different day because I deprioritized it and said that well, actually it doesn't need to be done right now. But having an understanding of what are critical things that need to get done and how can I make sure that those items are taken care of, that is useful and it does help focus a little. So you can say maybe I do this one over that one, but holding it to it religiously is not something I've necessarily found to be as effective.

Dave: 9:27

I almost feel like there's these two things coming together that really maybe this is the sort of key thing we can focus on. One is we need to have a list of priorities.

Dave: 9:37

We need to know what's most valuable, what's least valuable so that we can make decisions based on where we are in the day and what we can do, but the other side of it is recognizing there's a whole bunch of context that we have to bring to the table, and I remember years ago if you remember david allen and getting things done he would always talk about um organizing the list by, for example, if you need a phone, so there's the phone calls, and you group them by phone. Or if you need quiet time to do reading, you group them by that, so that your environment is somehow taken into consideration. When I'm in a car and all I can really do is get on the phone and have conversations, I need the list of phone calls that I need to take care of. When I'm in a quiet space and I can do the reading, maybe I need that list of things that I can do so we can bring environment or context into it.

Dave: 10:31

And I think the second bit that comes in, and the key one that we've touched on, is energy, and I just was one of those procrastinating moments watching a short conversation where Jeff Bezos was talking about making sure his high cognitive load, high IQ conversations, the ones where he needs to think and understand, and so on. They're all first thing in the morning. His idea of first thing in the morning is 10 am and I'm immediately jealous of anybody's day that starts at 10 am, but I do think it's a great way of recognizing when I have the highest level of energy and I'm freshest. I need to tackle my biggest problems, which might not be top priority.

Peter: 11:14

Yes, yeah, I completely agree. I follow the same logic too. When I've got the energy, it's first thing in the morning. It's always when I'm at my sharpest and ready to dive into complex topics and start to think through and work out how something, some complex piece that I need to figure out how that works, that's always first thing in the morning. I have noticed myself when, often, when I find myself drifting off into wanting to do something other than the highest listed task on my task list, it can often be simply because I have, uh, far too many things on my plate, or I've just had too much context switching and too many things running around my head as a consequence of that. And so the and I think this ties directly back into the get things done piece you were talking about there too, is like understanding and when am I going to need time and space to do these pieces? But also we have as humans.

Dave: 12:14

obviously we often tend to over commit or underestimate how much time it will take to finish that report. So we carve out 90 minutes when it's actually going to take 3 or 4 hours yes, exactly.

Peter: 12:32

And then there's the okay. Well, that meeting actually finished 10 minutes early. What am I going to do with those 10 minutes? Yeah?

Dave: 12:42

this is very or starting 15 minutes late. What am I going to do with that 15 minutes? And yes, since I kept you waiting 15 exactly, and you'll be pleased to know, in preparation for this conversation, I did absolutely nothing for 15 minutes. You procrastinated, perfect, um, one of the the this actually brings us kind of we're joking about this time in the calendar, but one of the things that I think really helps is planning your week and where there's there's so many conversations from a productivity perspective about you know, getting your to-do list done the night before so you're up and rolling the next day, and the idea of taking 30 minutes an hour at the weekend, first thing monday morning, if you don't want to do that at the weekend.

Dave: 13:29

But looking ahead at your week and really planning every kind of aspect of that, and I think what comes to mind there is not just your work but your outside work, so you're kind of balancing everything. It's an interesting one. It feels like a lot of planning and how do you create space for things, but we know how to do that. We're working with Agile teams. We totally get contingency and all the rest of it. But how do you create a view of your week, so that you're really thoughtful about the week instead of letting it hit you as you open the next email, go from the next meeting to the next meeting or whatever it might be.

Peter: 14:09

Yes, I actually have a task in my to-do list that reminds me on a Sunday to go through, and I spend a half an hour to an hour just going through and cleaning up my week ahead, understanding what is it I've got coming up. Is there anything critical that I got to make sure I'm prepared for? Do I need to move things around to make sure I've got space? Do I need to move things around to make sure I've got space to get to places, because I've got back-to-back meetings in different parts of the city. That's not going to work. So, sorting out all of that type of stuff and logistics, and so I do exactly that and spend some time going through my calendar and making sure especially overlapping meetings where I've got three or four, I try to sort all that out and send out a bunch of notes.

Peter: 14:53

Um, the that part of it, uh, I do find that very valuable to go through and do that. Of course, monday comes and then people change everything and reschedule and move it over. So so there's, but it I at least have the peace of mind when I'm starting on. Monday comes and then people change everything and reschedule and move it all right. So so there's, but it.

Dave: 15:08

I at least have the peace of mind when I'm starting on monday morning yeah, yeah, but I find that I find this quite an interesting, um sort of an exercise because it sort of makes it's helping get a be thoughtful about why we're spending our time. Because, there's loads of interesting things you can do about that, Like you know. Are you spending enough time building relationships, or spending enough time with your family, or wherever it is that you want to invest? You can start really beginning to see it rather than hoping it's going to happen.

Peter: 15:41

Yeah, yeah.

Dave: 15:43

Now, if I can come. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, after you. I wanted to come back to the original question, which wasn't so much procrastination, but more how to get started when you're stuck.

Peter: 15:57

And so I think we've touched on a few of these like things like prioritization helps a lot, like understanding what are your priorities and then not only putting the other stuff and saying I'm going to do that later, but just putting it out of mind entirely, move it to a different day, put it off the list entirely so you only have the one thing to focus on. So if you've got a list of 10 things I didn't say I'm going to do the one at the top you'll end up picking and choosing out of it. If you really only have to get that one thing done, make sure it's the only thing on your list and that way that really creates the focus you need. Just clear everything else out, push it off to another day, delete it, whatever you need to do, just that can really help. Really be very draconian about prioritization, that can definitely help.

Peter: 16:45

Thinking about, sometimes, tasks I mean these are tasks that are massively overwhelming because they're so large and so it's and the how do you eat an elephant conversation I mean all the cruelty to animals that come out of the agile space, but the I'm not sure that one is actually in particular, but I think it came from someone else but the idea that we need to break things down into smaller pieces so they become more tackleable. What's the first thing I need to do? I think of, like James Clear's habit one If I want to go for a run, first thing I've got to do is tie the laces on my shoes. So how do I get to the door with my shoes on? How do I make that really easy to do?

Dave: 17:22

right, so I can get yeah and I I feel that that one that you're just picking up there is so so many times. You know you've got to put this huge, you know you've got this huge piece of work to do and so we end up just staring at it because we've not been able to identify even what the first step is. So, just understanding that and immediately hitting that to say no, here's, here's the first three things I'll do. They're quick and easy and they get me moving and that that's enough, and it's like building up that little bit of momentum, right?

Dave: 17:50

Yes, I find, uh, in parallel to that, something that I found really very, very helpful, and um is the pomodoro technique. So what I I'll often do is just, you know, put a-minute timer on my phone, put it all away and then just try and do anything at all, really organize it, start it going and by the end of that exactly by the end of the 35 minutes, what I typically find is you're well into whatever it is you have to do. Maybe you need a five-minute break and another 35 minutes, but within an hour or so you're up and running.

Peter: 18:25

Yeah, I have on my desk a little egg timer thing that I use. I use it for lots of those. One of the main ones is, uh, to remind me when I'm supposed to be somewhere. So if I I'm going to dive into a piece of work and I know that like 47 minutes from now I've got a meeting starting and I'm going to get deep into the piece of work that I'm doing, I'll set it, the timer, so it goes off and reminds me that I'm oh, whoops, fair enough. But I also use it as a Pomodoro timer in a similar fashion to say, okay, I'm going to spend the next 25 minutes on this and then I'm going to get up and walk around Out of all of this. How would you wrap this up in three points? We've covered a lot of topics.

Dave: 19:16

Let me. So what struck me as we were having this conversation, I think, first of all, is everybody gets stuck. Yeah, so take it easy on yourself, you know. Just, sometimes we get to the end of the day and we want to kick ourselves in the shins because, whatever, because the day has panned out the way it did and we didn't get done what we wanted to. And I think one of the first things is everybody goes through it. So we've got to sort of, you know, know, be kind to ourselves on that.

Dave: 19:46

I think that's something that's super important, um, I feel. Number two, uh, so much of it has to do with energy levels, and I do wonder because I don't think this is something that is fully appreciated and understood perhaps, um is just how to manage those energy levels. Recognizing your freshest in the morning, so that's when we want to do the tougher problems, recognizing the need to and again, I'm just thinking, you and I both have those days where we're in front of a screen for hours and hours at a time, with very little space in between. How on earth can we keep the energy levels up?

Peter: 20:27

yeah, so I think energy levels become really critical.

Dave: 20:31

Um, and yeah, I wonder. Third thing, maybe to go back to that original question of how to get started when you're stuck. I kind of I know we closed on it, which was the pomodoro technique.

Peter: 20:48

I would say that pomodoro technique has got me out of trouble more times than I can remember I think I think the uh, the one that I would add, and I think it was useful reminder from the sort of the get things done, the like, think about the context of the tasks you're going to do, think about how that might fit together into the different. So if I put all the things which are to do with I'm going to have to call people, do all the calls altogether, do all of the reading together, I think that's a useful reminder and it ties into that the other piece we were talking about there. I'm thinking about what do I have coming up in the coming week and setting yourself some time just to sit back, relax, so you're not so overwhelmed when you start, because if you start the week overwhelmed, then you almost certainly are going to.

Dave: 21:35

It's hard to dig out, right, so yeah.

Peter: 21:39

Yeah, awesome, I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much, and hopefully that'll help us get away from any procrastination we have. I was just going to say we're all motivated to get up and get moving again. Let's go.

Dave: 21:52

Great conversation. Thanks again, Peter.

Peter: 21:54

Thanks. So yeah, don't forget, hit subscribe and you can reach us at feedback at definitelymaybeagilecom Until next time Till next time.