Procrastination is one more cup of coffee. It is one more load of laundry. One more unnecessary celebrity news story or Facebook post or interesting blog. It is picking up the phone call or answering the text that you know you probably should not. It is the needy friend who you’ve already given so much to and yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, still needs more. It is grocery shopping during those precious few hours you’ve given yourself to work. It is staring blankly at a wall or a screen or your cuticles for longer than you need to, instead of just starting. Call it a lack of focus, difficulty concentrating, inattention, or just plain old laziness, procrastination is the ultimate time-suck, which steals your motivation and makes it difficult to live the live you want to live.

Time continues to move forward. Whether we move with it, is up to us.

At the very base of it, procrastination begins with a moment of hesitation, that then spirals into an extended period of catatonic, brain-foggy, unremarkable, non-productiveness.

Merriam Webster defines procrastination as the action of postponing or delaying something. And we do it for all kinds of reasons, some common to humankind, some unique to you.

One of my greatest procrastination triggers is having someone in my office (a corner of the master bedroom that features a desk and filing cabinets) when I am on assignment. If someone is lurking about, I stop writing and start answering emails, and updating my calendar, and cleaning out files on my hard drive until this person leaves and I can return to my writing. By then, hours may have passed and I have missed my deadline. So my behavior actually affects not only my output, but my income. Which in turn affects my entire family.

A more common cause of procrastination is feeling we need to “be there” for a friend or family member who is only all too happy to call or text you during work hours so you can be her sounding board, his cheerleader, their life coach.

Or you tell yourself that your hesitation is a mental health break, a moment to clear your head and enjoy the gorgeous tree outside your window. (Two hours later when you’re still staring at the tree, however, your mental health break has veered into full-blown procrastination.)

In the greater scheme of things, one or two days lost to inaction really aren’t so much of a big deal. But what if you’ve lost a week? A month? A year? A decade?

Or a lifetime?

You see what I’m getting at?

It’s not the things we do that make it hard to meet our goals and give life to our dreams. It’s the things we do all the time that make it challenging to meet our goals and give life to our dreams.

Put in another way: Losing a lifestime to procrastination can mean there is no time left for you to create your dreams and enjoy your desires.

For proof, just look at the power of water droplets. A trickle of water, after a decade, can split a rock. A trickle of water, after a millennia, can create a canyon.

That realization has hit me hard.

I am not someone whom you would think of as a slacker. I have written more than 20 books. I was a nutrition counselor and a life coach for many years. I am involved in charitable works. I have three very busy showbiz children whose careers I manage. Due to my husband’s job in another state, I am also a solo parent four or five days each week. In other words, there is a lot going on in my life. So much so, that I could easily pretend that I have achieved everything I have set out to create.

But I would be lying. In truth, there is a lot I desperately want to bring into the world, but due to my own inaction, I have not yet created.

Such as:

A best-selling non-cookbook, non- health book, which requires a best-selling publicity campaign. (Which in return requires a bit of work on my part!)A regular, radio show—one that generates income.A yearly telesummit interview series.A YouTube television talk show.A Broadway musical.A television series.A creator’s lab/retreat center.

I take ownership of every single one of these things that I have not created. It would be so easy for me to blame the kids’ schedules, the lack of parenting help, and the needier people I have in my life for “using up” all of my work time.

I can’t do that, because I know—without doubt—that I am the reason I don’t have everything what I want.

When an acquaintance mentioned Mel Robbins’ five-second rule, and how it helped him overcome procrastination, I listened. Mel Robbins’ five-second rule is basically counting backwards from five the moment you feel yourself slipping into inaction.

Go here for a YouTube video about the five second rule.

Go here for a look at Mel’s Robbins book, The 5 Second Rule.

The five second rule works because it bypasses your brain which often pulls you down into fear-based inaction. “Your brain is designed to keep you where you are right now, because it is safe,” says Robbins, explaining why doing something new is often so hard.

Think of when you were a child and you were walking home with a friend from school and one of you would suddenly blurt out “Race you to the corner! Five, four, three, two, one, go!” And without even stopping to think—about whether or not it was a good idea to race to the corner, or that your friend was faster than you and you’d probably lose, or that you were wearing shoes that pinched your feet—your body would take over with no input from your brain whatsoever and your legs would immediately begin sprinting to the corner.

According to Robbins, hesitation can turn to procrastination: that split-second when you hesitate can grow into an hour of web surfing or a half a day of mindless whatever.

What I find what I find is if I can bypass that moment of inaction, procrastination does not have an opportunity to gain a foothold.

We all have our reasons for hesitating.

I hesitate when I feel overwhelmed. Hesitating—and then procrastinating—is how my subconscious intentionally lightens my workload. If I am busy “researching” something on the web, I can’t complete my kid’s work permit forms. If I am searching for seventh or eighth or eleventh expert opinion regarding whether or not my teenagers should have paying summer jobs, I can’t answer those half-dozen very lengthy client emails. If I am spending hours of (un)necessary research on summer camps, I get to feel busy while simultaneously not finishing up the overdue manuscript that my editor has been begging me to complete.

Here’s where I share that confession I promised. This example comes to you from my own life, circa October 217. I was four months away from turning in a manuscript for a dream book that was to be published Fall 2018. I was so late in finishing, in fact, that my publisher almost scrapped the project. Why was I so late? Because I was busy procrastinating with “family related stuff.” I procrastinated so severely that weeks would go by without me even writing a word on that manuscript.

This was a book I fought to write. A book that could launch me out of the health world that I feel ready to leave behind. A book on a topic that I grew up with, that I adore, that I want to share with the world. A book that I was tremendously excited to write. But, at the same time, I felt so overwhelmed with caring for my family, that I began to feel resentful of having another thing on plate. I didn’t want to deal with another task each day—even if it was my dream project. So I procrastinated, making snacks that my kids could have made themselves, picking up children who could have walked themselves home, wiping noses that could have been left alone. In the end, adopting he five-second rule stopped my frequent hesitation, and redirected me back to the writing (and away from the kids, who really did not need me to be constantly swooping in.) In the three weeks I used this technique, I wrote five chapters, finishing the manuscript and turning it in to my editor.

What I learned in this process is that the procrastination that came from hesitating was threatening to become more important than my goal of writing that book. Does the five-second rule work for everyone? I have no idea!

If you do try it, stop in here and let me know how it worked for you. Or, if you have another procrastination-busting tip, share it in the comments below! I am always looking for ways to make getting my work done even easier!

Procrastination Resources

The 5-Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work and Confidence Witih Everyday Courage, by Mel Robbins, teaches you how to use the “five second rule” to bypass procrastination the moment it starts. Easy and effective!The 5-Second Rule Journal, by Mel Robbins, features prompts, inspiration and plenty of space for lists, to help make your dreams a reality.Eat That Frog: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, by Brian Tracy. This self-help favorite espouses getting your least favorite tasks done first, so you can sail through the rest of your day.Get Sh*t Done motivational poster. I am a big fan of surrounding myself with motivational props, and this poster is one of my favorites. It’s funny, irreverent, and to-the-point.Music for Studying: Instrumental Learning Collection, by Moonlit Records. The right music energizes me and makes me both focused and relaxed. I especially like this collection when I am writing.

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