How to stop putting off doing the work

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“Okay, today’s the day”

“I’m going to do that task that I’ve been putting off”

How many times have you said something like this to yourself?

You’ve got a task that needs to be done. It’s important.

But you keep putting it off.

You keep saying “I’ll do it tomorrow”

But the funny thing about tomorrow is that it’s always tomorrow.

I used to do this all the time.

When I was launching my first digital product I put off making the sales page for weeks.

When I wanted to start a newsletter I put it off for over a year.

And because it took me weeks to make the sales page, it took me weeks before I made progress.

Because it took me 18 months to start my newsletter, it took me 18 months to make progress.

Putting off the task does nothing but delay your progress and withhold your success.

So why do you do it?

And more importantly, how can you stop doing it?

Most of the time you put off a task it comes down to 3 reasons;

Lack of clarity

You don’t have clarity on what the specific task you need to do is or what it involves

Not understanding its importance

You don’t understand the impact completing the task will have on achieving your goals and dream life (this might be because you don’t have clarity on these as well)

Friction

Starting is the hardest part of any task or project.

The friction is so damn high because the work demands you prove yourself worthy of completing it by overcoming the challenge of starting.

There can be other reasons, but by far these 3 are the most common and most powerful.

So how can you overcome them?

Get clear

You need to be crystal clear on what the task you’re doing is and what it involves.

Take my example from earlier of making a sales page.

The task:

• Creating a sales page for my product

What it involves:

• Gathering the pain points, problems, dream outcomes, and goals of my target customer

• Writing the copy in a persuasive way that shows my product solves their pain points and problems whilst helping them achieve their dream outcome and goals (and this itself has multiple steps you would need to get clear on)

• Creating the sales page on a website hosting platform

• Structuring the sales page in a way that persuades the reader, shows I can help them, and builds trust

• Making sure all the links work correctly

• Checking for errors/mistakes

• Launching the sales page

Now you know exactly what you need to do to complete the task, start with the first step. Focus entirely on it until it’s completed and then move on to the next one.

Understand its importance

Why the fuck are you doing this task? Does it even need to be done? Is it even important?

You need to know this.

And specifically, you need to know how the task impacts you achieving your goals and dream life.

Why did I want to make the sales page?

To make sales and increase the income from my creator business to help me achieve my income goal at the time.

Heck, without the sales page, I wouldn’t have been able to move toward that income goal.

So this task was pretty damn important.

The Jerry Seinfeld Technique

Starting is fucking hard - so is everything worthwhile.

But the Jerry Seinfeld Technique changed everything for me.

Here’s how you use it:

• Remove distractions (phone turned off and in another room, website blocker on your laptop, etc)

• Schedule time to do the task (or the first specific step)

• Sit down at the scheduled time

And then give yourself 2 options

• Sit down and do the work

• Sit down and stare at the wall

You don’t have to do the task, but you can’t do anything else.

You have to stare at the wall, no phone, no conversations, no scrolling, no YouTube, no reading, fucking nothing. 

This way, because you have the option of not doing the work (and it’s a valid option you’re allowed to choose), you’ll guarantee you sit down at the scheduled time.

And if you choose to stare at the wall, I promise you that after 5 minutes of staring at the wall, you’ll start working.

Understand this;

Your success is directly correlated with your ability to keep the commitments you make to yourself.

If you do these 3 things, you’ll stop putting off the damn work.

You’ll stop withholding progress and putting off success.

You’ll start.

- Ross

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