Why NOT To Do That Thing You’ve Been Procrastinating

Like many of you, I have HUGE goals and ambitions for 2008. For months, I’ve been both anticipating and dreading the beginning of the New Year, because I’ve been wondering how in the world I would ever be able to accomplish all of the things I want to do this year.

A few weeks ago, I got Dave Navarro’s 30 Hours A Day audio coaching program and decided that I would begin my virtual coaching session with Dave on New Year’s Day.

I’ve always enjoyed Dave’s posts on Freelance Folder and expected his coaching program to be just as great – but having 4.7 hours of his insight has proven even better than expected. After listening to just the first of the 11 coaching sessions, I had an a-ha! moment that really changed the way I’m going to tackle things this year.

There was one sentence that Dave said that REALLY stood out to me. He says:

If it’s not worth making time for, what’s it doing on your list anyway?

Duh.

Why didn’t I think of that? I have spent every night of both of these 4 day holiday ‘weekends’ irritated with myself for not crossing more off of my ‘to-do’ list. Instead of crossing them off, I’m going to knock them off.

What makes Dave’s program different and refreshing, is that he is not suggesting that you learn how to cram more crap-tasks into your day by becoming more ‘productive.’ His philosophy is that when you’re in ‘the zone,’ the state of being where you can make massive amount of progress in record time, THAT is where you achieve true productivity.

How I’m Going to Knock Crap Tasks Off of My To Do List

I have only had hours to think about how I’m going to do this since listening to Dave’s coaching program, but immediately some ideas came to mind:

• Use Camtasia to create screen capture videos of all of the boring repetitive waste of time tasks that I do and outsource them

• Set up monthly phone meetings with clients to gather all of the content topics and ideas for the entire month and use Audacity to record phone calls with clients when I talk to them about content ideas so that I can either refer to them later or outsource the writing to a freelancer without losing the client’s perspective. This is an awesome idea introduced to me by Kevin Dykes of Forest for the Trees.

• Hire someone to do all of the things that I despise doing so much that I put them off far too long such as doing laundry, scrubbing bathtubs, dealing with taxes, etc.

• Hire someone to handle new business inquiries

• Create a ‘perfect introduction document‘ that explains exactly the type of client that I’m looking for so that I don’t waste time with leads that aren’t right for my business.

• Outsource the jobs and projects that I’ve taken on, but been procrastinating about doing – even if I don’t make a dime on them. I just don’t want them taking up any more of my mental real estate and blocking my flow.

So far, I’ve only finished the first CD of Dave’s 30 Hours A Day coaching program. After I listened that far, I felt compelled to start digging in and getting some things done. I know I’ve found something really good when I can barely stand to listen to it any longer because I’m itching to get started.

I’ve decided to set aside to listen to the audios every day for at least one hour and am quite certain that I’ll have more a-ha! moments to report!