How to bring more focus and less overwhelm to your work week

I’ve been speaking to some of my clients about procrastination, and they’ve noticed themselves procrastinating more. So we started to look at one area of their work week to help with this, if you find yourself procrastinating more that you’d like during the working day, have a read below of one thing you change at the start of the week so help reduce your procrastination.

Before I go into that, I wanted to mention that there are lots of different reasons why we might procrastinate and this varies for every individual - stress, self doubt, perfectionism, hormones, neurodiversity, overwhelm, it may be a mix of these or some may be more impactful than others on your procrastination.

And as a business owner it can feel even harder some days to not procrastinate because we don’t have anyone sitting next to us asking if we’ve done that task yet (this is where accountability can be a really great tool to incorporate into your week).

But something that can help on the days you don’t have accountability is understanding how your energy can impact your level of procrastination. We all have different levels of energy and certain tasks require more or less energy.

One step is setting up your calendar to work around your energy

Identifying which tasks take a lot of your creative energy, mental energy, social energy can help you plan out your day/week so instead of trying to do lots of high energy tasks which can lead to procrastination and less focus, you can create a plan for the week that suits you and your energy which can help lessen your want to procrastinate during the day. 

I read something interesting recently and it said - if you can catch yourself when you’re about to do something that’s not the task on your list, like go and scroll social media or make a cup of tea etc, pause and count to 10. Then notice what you do and how you feel, because you’ve broken the habit and you’re being more mindful around why you’re choosing not to do a task after those 10 seconds you may be more likely to go back to the task than procrastinate. 

Before you start your next work week try this:

1. List out all your tasks for the week

2. Then prioritise them in order of energy

3. Then schedule your week so your high energy tasks are when you feel most focussed

4. Have a week of tasks planned to your energy levels

5. Notice how you can stay focussed when you plan around your energy