Overcoming Procrastination as an Entrepreneur

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Hey everyone,

If there’s one thing that has the power to hold us back from making any meaningful progress over time, the culprit is procrastination.

This is the invisible force pulling you back by your heels that has the potential power to cost you everything in life.

An interesting quote and thought experiment from Chris Williamson who I know from my hometown in the northeast of England on The Joe Rogan Podcast, stated:

"Hell, is where who you are, meets who you could have been”.

The crazy thing about this is, that one of the main forces behind this potential worst-case scenario is succumbing to procrastination.

Whilst we all know that success (however you define it) isn’t linear, once you learn to temper the urge to put big important tasks off, this will unlock the ultimate shortcut to business and life mastery for you in the straightest possible line.

Who could we be if we stopped procrastinating?

What goals could we achieve if we sat down and planned them out?

And that sometimes, our worst enemy is…ourselves.

Today we’re going to be delving into how to face off and overcome this faceless devil, the one anchoring you to your present state, instead of your desired situation.

As high-functioning human beings reading and listening to this, I don’t need to define, or tell you what procrastination is, so instead, we’ll focus this episode how it manifests, what it means for your business and, of course, strategies to eradicate it from your life completely.

Remember, it’s not ‘who am I, it’s who am I becoming’. Who we are in life is not fixed, we have the agency to pin our character down and install new skills, actions and beliefs.

When starting my first e-commerce business, I had no money for courses or mentors. I had to wear multiple hats in the business, most of which I knew nothing about and detested doing. Despite this, because failure wasn't an option, I forced myself to do whatever the business required of me to get the job done.

In the early days, before you have the cashflow to hire out low-leverage tasks, you will also need to learn to do the same. In this episode, I’ll teach you how to do the work, irrespective of how you feel.

The Top Causes of Entrepreneurial Procrastination

Most times, we procrastinate when confronted with a task that you simply don’t want to complete because it’s difficult, long drawn out, tedious and therefore seems unsurmountable.

As a human being, you have the power to talk yourself in or out of anything. Most times, however, the instinct is to run towards comfort and away from pain.

If you stack enough mental justifications as to why the task doesn’t need to be done now, or why it can be ‘got to’ later, then it’ll simply never be completed. This is procrastination in a nutshell.

In the early stages of business, you may lead towards procrastination because you don’t know what to do. You don’t know what your money dials are (the important tasks) and thus can waste time working on projects that you enjoy, but that don’t actually move the business forward.

This is where having a mentor by your side becomes crucial to business success.

Whilst we’re on the topic of not knowing what to do in business, or investing time into the wrong activities, these are guaranteed to slow your progress. Making avoidable mistakes will cost you years, and many hundreds of thousands of dollars (both in actual expenditure and opportunity cost) extending your path toward time, location and financial freedom tenfold.

If you’d like to join my next cohort of e-com entrepreneurs who want to scale to 100k+ / month revenues, then you can apply to join the Invent Impossible E-Com Mastery course which kicks off in August inside my Skool Community.

I’m only opening up 10 spots for this first run. The next opportunity will be in November.

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My wider hope is that you’ll make some amazing connections within the community and help each other with similar struggles. The entrepreneurial journey can and does get lonely, so you don’t need to travel this journey alone.

I’ll teach and give you the exact infrastructure, ways of working and performance marketing framework of a 7- figure direct-to-consumer to consumer e-commerce brand to plug straight into your own business.

If you’re feeling stuck and have time to invest, then this done-with-you cohort-based programme is guaranteed to 10x your business in the next 3 months. I’ve designed it from the ground up to be the resource I needed when starting almost 10 years ago.

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If we’re talking about task avoidance or selection, let’s say for instance you might like the creative process of website building.

Now, if you only focus time, effort and energy on this and neglect the back-end operational side, such as cashflow or distribution simply because you don’t enjoy doing it - then the second, third and fourth-order consequences of this are going to impact your business negatively down the line.

It’s easy to kick the proverbial can down the road instead of confronting a particular task head on, but in business this can’t work.

You must develop the self-awareness to know when you’re putting off an important task and choosing the path of least resistance.

Do this enough times, and you’ll find yourself back in the 9-5 grind.

Not good.

Three Common Causes and Types of Entrepreneurial Procrastination:

1. Perfectionism:

A primary reason for procrastination is the fear of reducing choices and facing the fact that you may never actualise something in reality as perfectly as it looks in your imagination.

Everything around you originated as an thought or image in someones head. Was it perfect first time? Probably not. Like most things, it probably improved over time with each iteration. But if they had held off launching due to it not being 100% perfect yet, it probably would never have come into existence.

Being a perfectionist is a common trait with entrepreneurs. You want your design to be the best it possibly can be, right? After all this is your life’s work, and you may even feel your reputation on the line.

Where this can lead to beautifully designed products and services, there is such as thing as spending too much time on a research and design and not allowing it out into the world.

If you don’t know how to build, make or design, or are worried about a particular feature of your product or business, as the business owner, it’s your job to learn how.

‘Start now, get perfect later’.

2. Fear of judgement

Fear of external judgement may also drag you into the perfectionism trap. In a nutshell, it’s undue concern about what others will think.

You think, if I do this and it’s not ‘good enough’ will others judge me and think me too X, Y or Z (you fill in the blanks) or even ridiculous for having even tried.

This is a lie.

here are all sorts of reasons to be oriented outwards and paying attention to what others think and also what the world needs. The balance is in realising that if you over index to either of these two reasons then it would be possible to literally not do anything.

In Eric Rees book; the Lean Start-Up talks about getting to market quickly. He encourages you to start with a MVP (Minimal Viable Product) and then let the market tell you what it wants, likes or dislikes, as opposed to spending years refining a product.

This is the best way to make progress when setting up shop.

Reid Hoffman (Co-founder at LinkedIn) states that if you’re not ‘if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late’.

This is a fantastic heuristic to reframe any hidden procrastination around bringing your product or new range to market.

3. Feelings of insecurity:

Whenever you start to look outwards, you see others are doing whatever you’re doing better. This prompts your inner voice to ask, why does the world need another XXX – and those XXXs can be filled by almost anything that you’re thinking about doing*.*

This is a surefire way to fall into the comparison trap, and as we all know; “comparison is the thief of joy” (first coined by Theodore Roosevelt).

Can you imagine if Pepsi decided not to take Coca-Cola on just because they got there first and did a good job of the product and marketing?

Trust me when I say, there is room for disruption in almost all fields.

There is plenty money to go around for challenger brands, but it’s up to you to place your own unique stamp on your product or service to make sure you’re in with a chance of taking a slice of the pie.

No one is going to do this for you though.

Assuming you’re fit and healthy and exercise regularly, make sure to train your mind the same way you train your body.

As an entrepreneur, most times you’re paid for your thoughts and what these can manifest into reality. Become a mental athlete and build a rock-solid mindset where you’re solely focused on building your own empire, not focusing on those who have a 10-year head start on you.

Be sure to take inspiration from them, but do not compare - your journeys are separate and on different timelines. You can’t compare another's level 10 business with your level 3. This will breed discouragement and resentment, compounding your internal drive to procrastinate.

Remember: Every beginner, was once a beginner. Every master was once a disaster.

4. I don’t want to do it, and so I am putting it off:

This is the most common reason for not getting important tasks completed.

It may be because it’s something that someone else has tasked you with doing. Or because you have a dread of what I may uncover if you do it. It can also be because you know it will be complex and messy and unlikely to be resolved.

How to finally overcome procrastination:

The early Stoics also seemed hyper-aware of the plague of procrastination and offered some great advice on how to overcome it.

Marcus Aurelius suggested you ‘take it step my step.’ No one can stop you from doing that. He encourages you not to focus on the huge task at hand, instead ask yourself: What’s the smallest thing you can do right now?

Zeno, the founder of stoicism actually said that ‘wellbeing is realised by small steps, but it’s no small thing.’

What he’s trying to get across here is that maybe part of the reason you're procrastinating is because you have so much on your plate. The Stoics say we have to ‘eliminate what is inessential, so we can focus on what is essential.’

Forget about outcomes. When we focus on what we can control (which is what we’re putting in), then we make progress.

Try not to be outcome-focused. Instead, think about; ‘What can I do today to move me further towards my end outcome’.

Small steps, when compounded over time make for assured progress.

As a side note to this, ask yourself: ‘Am I putting my very best into it?’

Most times, it’s not the volume of work that counts, it’s the focus on quality that allows growth to occur.

As an entrepreneur who has escaped (or is in process of escaping) the 9-5 drudgery, sometimes, you can feel compelled to fall back into old ‘work for works sake’ trap.

You’re walking around, making a coffee, small talking on the phone or chit chatting with colleagues, shuffling papers to feel busy, but in reality, you’re not actually doing any meaningful work. Instead, you’re back to time-wasting.

As we all know, time is our most valuable non-renewable asset.

The 9-5 matrix script actually encourages time-wasting, especially if you’re salaried and not paid for outcomes.

When running your own business, this way of working is a surefire road to failure.

“One of the sole predictors of success in life and business is being ready and able to do hard things.”

I’m talking about a consistent approach to taking the difficult decision and not shying away from doing whatever stands between you and the next milestone. Remember, whatever hinders your task - becomes your task.

When you’re starting in business, you have so many hats to wear. You have so many moving parts. All of the responsibility falls on your shoulders and most times, no one is going to do the work for you, at least not in the early stages.

Irrespective of how you feel about the task, if it’s holding you back from progressing, then you have no option but to get your head down and complete it.

In Alex Hormozi’s words:

“Instead of spending time “getting in the mood to work”… just start working.

Confront the work.

People think they need perfect conditions to start when in reality, starting is the perfect condition.”

In reality, this means, your ability to knuckle down and do the hard work is the only thing standing between you and meaningful progress.

The next time you feel the silent urge to put an important task away for later on, or tomorrow, or next week, ask yourself:  “What would you tomorrow want you today to do?

Employ Gamification

Try to understand the consequences of task avoidance and assign it a priority. Learn and apply the principles of Parkinson’s Law. This dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.

The solution? Set tight deadlines and get it over with. If you give yourself a month to complete the task, it’ll take you a month. If you set it to be done before the end of the day, you’ll have it done before 5 pm.

A way to really make sure you stick to these self-imposed deadlines is to bring on an accountability partner. This can be a mentor, business partner, investor or customer etc. who can offer you external pressure to complete the task.

If your network is small, then try gamifying it by setting yourself rewards. These could be as simple as an early finish, or a cup of coffee from Starbucks.

Learn the art of Proactive Procrastination:

Productive procrastination, also called structured procrastination, is a technique where you intentionally delay less important or less urgent tasks by focusing on activities that are beneficial for your personal or business growth.

This is a way of working where you train yourself to focus on the high-impact tasks and use prioritisation to tackle the most meaningful, urgent task.

British Property Entrepreneur Rob Moore in his book Life Leverage, refers to these as High IGT tasks. IGT refers to Income Generating Tasks.

Once you learn your high-impact activities, these should always take precedence, irrespective of how you feel about doing the task itself. Developing strong self-discipline in this area will get you long way.

As mentioned in my last episode on overcoming the Fear of Starting Your Own Business, I brought up Seth Godin’s advice from his book Eat That Frog. This refers to:

Doing the thing you least want to do first.

Everything flows a lot easier past that point and your productivity can skyrocket from the positive emotions you feel once it’s crossed off your list. This, in turn will reward you with good dopamine, which will cascade and fuel you through completing other, future difficult tasks.

The internal positive reinforcement is very rewarding, versus the looming shadow over your day thinking about the task at hand.

Tim Ferriss also has another great rule of looking for the lead domino. In a nutshell, “ask yourself: which of these [tasks], if done, make the rest easier or irrelevant?”

Look for single decisions that remove hundreds or thousands of other decisions. Whilst this is more productivity focused, it still helps you narrow down tasks to the most important.

Try to break down any seemingly large tasks into smaller bitesize chunks and work at these consistently over time.

This work is stored and allowed to compound until completion. If you stop, you lose momentum, progress stalls and you’re back to putting it off again.

This is why consistency and setting your character traits up to identify as someone who doesn’t procrastinate.

Remember; you define your own traits, nothing is fixed and all is up to you to show up and prove that you are who you say you are.

Build that stack of undeniable proof up to show yourself and those around you that you’re capable of doing extraordinary things.

Set your day plan (routine) and environment up for success.

This is one of the biggest hacks since it doesn't require many learnings.

Simply remove any and all unnecessary distractions. That means No notifications. No TV in the room. No Social Media apps. Your phone is on silent or in the other room. Noise-cancelling headphones are on.

Block off time for deep work and allow yourself to get into the flow state. Most times, this is where the magic happens.

I’ll cover this entrepreneurial superpower in a future episode, but there’s plenty of reading online about this. I’d partially recommend you read Cal Newport’s book titled: Deep Work.

This was a long one, and still I feel we barely scratched the surface on the topic. Procrastination plagues us all, but once we’re aware and taking preventative action and proactive steps to overcome it, we can master it and eradicate it from our life.

Since we brought Chris Williamson up at the start, it only feels right to end by paraphrasing another one of his tweets. Hopefully, this one hits home for you:

“Here is a list of things that are not doing the thing:

Preparing to do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Scheduling time to do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Making a to-do list for the thing isn't doing the thing.

Telling people you're going to do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Messaging friends who may or may not be doing the thing isn't doing the thing.

Writing a banger tweet about how you're going to do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Hating on yourself for not doing the thing isn't doing the thing.

Hating on other people who have done the thing isn't doing the thing.

Hating on the obstacles in the way of doing the thing isn't doing the thing.

Fantasising about all of the adoration you'll receive once you do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Reading about how to do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Reading about how other people did the thing isn't doing the thing.

Reading this essay isn't doing the thing.

The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing. — Strangest Loop”

That’s all for this one, I’ll see you in the next!

To your continued success.

Lou Antonio

If you want to learn more and scale your own direct-to-consumer business, apply to join the newly launched Invent Impossible Skool Community below. Membership is only $1 for the first 50 members, raising to $99/ month soon.