The Art of Beating Procrastination

Laura

0:07
Hi, this is Laura.

Nikki

0:08
And this is Nikki, with the Startist Society inspiring you to stop getting in your own way, and start building an art, biz and life that you love.

Laura

0:17
We are artists who believes strongly in the power of community accountability, following your intuition, taking small actionable steps and breaking down the barriers of fear and procrastination that keep you stuck.

Nikki

0:31
Follow along with us on our creative business journey as we encourage you on yours.

What are we here to talk about today?

Laura

0:39
Today we are talking about one of my favorite topics of being an artist, and that is procrastination.

Nikki

0:48
Ooh, procrastination is not one of my favorite things. It should be though, because I live with it every day.

Laura

0:55
As do I, as do I. So procrastination is just one of those things that – there are so many ways that we procrastinate, I actually think I’m a fairly productive procrastinator, I can tell you that I’ve spring cleaned my entire house before just to avoid doing something.

Nikki

1:13
I also am a very productive procrastinator. Every time I need to do marketing of a product I’ve already made, or a piece of art that I’ve completed. Instead of marketing it, I go make another drawing. And that’s how I have a stack of drawings two feet high.

Laura

1:30
You must have a really, really impressive portfolio.

Nikki

1:33
Well, I would have an impressive portfolio if I wasn’t procrastinating actually taking them off my iPad and putting them into a portfolio. Why do we procrastinate so much? What are we afraid of? What’s keeping us from getting all the things done?

Laura

1:53
I think there’s so many reasons. And they’re probably unique to each person. But I know for myself, there are certain things that really stopped me from even getting started. And that’s what we were really here to talk about is you know, starting and getting forward movement. And as things pop up, rather than being completely blocked moving through those things. And so for me, one of those issues is perfectionism.

I grew up consistently striving to achieve and have all my ducks in a row, my eyes dotted T’s crossed with everything that I did. And so as I have grown older, it’s really tough sometimes to get started with something, it’s outside of my comfort zone. And so then I’ll just revert back to things that are in my comfort zone. That’s also where we bring in one of our favorite terms, “procrasti-learning”.

Nikki

2:47
Because if we’re afraid to get started on something, you can always find another book, another course another blog post, another podcast to listen to, that’s gonna teach you exactly what you need to know. And that way you get to feel like you’re being productive, because you’re learning that thing. But you’re not actually getting started.

Laura

3:08
I would know nothing about that, though, right? Because I only own maybe 100 classes that I haven’t finished.

Nikki

3:16
And how many different things have we read and looked at and listen to about podcasting before getting this started?

Laura

3:23
Oh, boy. Well, and you know, some of that is also I think another thing that contributes to procrastination is overwhelm. Because there are all these choices, right? Let’s just break it down. For example, you know, I’ve wanted to teach online classes for a very long time. And so the idea of moving to online classes, and what does it take to get there? And what platform do you use? And, you know, what camera do you use to videotape it? And then how do you get a camera that’s on your surface? And how to there are a million different decisions that you have to make? And I get very overwhelmed in decision making. I don’t know about you.

Nikki

4:05
Oh, absolutely. That term analysis paralysis is real. Oh, my gosh, I do that with…So I have this idea that I can get rid of all this procrastination and be very efficient and get all my work done beautifully, on time early, perfectly. If I just had the right task manager/project management tool. So how many of those have I tried out?

Laura

4:34
I’m guessing a few.

Nikki

4:35
I don’t know 50? 100?

Laura

4:40
You’re still searching for the elusive one

Nikki

4:42
I am still searching for the elusive one. And just when I have one set up beautifully that I think is going to work for me and end that procrastination, a new shiny one comes up and I’m like, well, that sounds better.

Laura

4:56
Yeah, you know, the shiny object syndrome is totally another form of procrastination. So for me, I know that I can be started on a project or be very excited about a project and then see something even on social media, somebody is doing this one thing that looks super cool… and well, now I need to go to Amazon, or Dick Blick and go purchase this item, so that I can create something cool with it, too. And then a day later, there’s a brand new shiny object that I have to have. And so all of that keeps us sort of from the focus of finishing that one thing or even getting started with that one thing that we were so excited about to begin with. So I know those are all part of it.

Nikki

5:37
So two questions we should address. First, why do we do this? And second, how do we move past it? So first? Why are we doing this? We know better, right? I mean, we know that there’s always going to be an endless supply of books, classes, software… we know we need to just get started. So what are we afraid of? Are we afraid of failure? Are we afraid of success?

Laura

6:06
I think it could be a combination of both of them. I mean, if you really think about it, like everybody knows how to lose weight, for example, right? Less calories, exercise more?

Nikki

6:15
Uh huh.

Laura

6:15
I know this, how many of us actually do it consistently?

Nikki

6:22
That’s different because there’s chocolate in the world.

Laura

6:24
True, very true. So I think sometimes there’re these things that we know we have to do, but we kind of block ourselves. And so yes, fear of failure? Absolutely. Do we want to invest all of our time and energy and bear our souls and be vulnerable to people in the world? Not knowing? Is it going to be crickets? Is it going to be, you know, nobody is going to be interested? Are we going to have some troll tell us that our you know, work is worthless? I think our heads go to this sort of worst case scenario, sometimes where we look at what it could be if we did put this thing out in the world.

Nikki

7:02
Yeah. And yeah, I kind of have this thing, this voice in the back of my head that says, Well, if you don’t start, you can’t fail. Right?

Laura

7:17
That’s true. But you know, I, I also have the opposite thing that pops up. And I think that that’s, you know, okay, what if I commit to a certain thing I put out in the world a project or a, you know, a platform or a class or an offering? And what if it is successful, but am I going to be tied to having to do that one thing forever and ever and ever and ever and ever, because that’s what people expect and want of me… kind of getting this fear of being stuck in one thing.

Nikki

7:50
Yeah.

Laura

7:51
Which may just be masking fear of failure.

Nikki

7:53
Probably. Although that goes with what – one thing that I always say is, don’t get known for something that isn’t what you want to do. That you don’t want to be doing.

Laura

8:04
That is true.

Nikki

8:05
Yeah. But that doesn’t mean don’t do it.

Laura

8:09
But Nikki, what if you want to do all the things?

Nikki

8:11
I know, we both want to do all the things, we want to do all the things!

Laura

8:15
That makes it very difficult.

Nikki

8:17
And, you know, I feel like half the things I’m saying are cliches, but you can do anything, but you can’t do everything.

Laura

8:25
Right?

Nikki

8:25
At least not all at once.

Laura

8:27
Not all at once. I struggle with it. I do believe we can be multi-passionate individuals. I honestly think you don’t have to niche down to just one thing.

Nikki

8:37
Right?

Laura

8:38
I think that if you are interested in you know, in my case, I’m interested in digital art. I work a lot in Procreate on my iPad. I’ve really been into that lately. But I also love surface pattern design with patterns. I also love creating in watercolor. I love other traditional mediums like acrylic and oil. And I’m a huge fan of Copic markers. Now, I’m not going to be an expert at all of those things. But I also don’t think I have to say I am now only going to be a watercolor person and be known for nothing else but that.

Nikki

9:11
Right, right. But we have to figure out a way to fit the different things – maybe narrow ’em down to a few manageable things at a time. Not saying you’ll never do it again. But say for now, like for instance for me drawing is my first and longest love. I will always draw. I draw on paper with with pen and ink and I draw digitally on my iPad and Procreate. But I also love encaustic and mixed media work with encaustic and branding and web design. That pays my bills, so that one’s not getting pushed to the side. But I’ve kind of decided you know I need to focus on maybe two main things right now. And so the encaustic is kind of on the back shelf, it’s not going away. But I’m focusing on my web design business, and creating surface design, more or less.

And we still have to figure out how to fit all the things in because if I say that’s only two things, but it’s not, it’s a million things within each one. And that, even though I’ve narrowed down to two focuses, I can still get stuck in overwhelm, because with the web design, I am the designer, I’m the developer, I’m the project manager. I’m the the CFO, the CTO, the marketing person, you know…

Laura

10:42
You’re wearing all the hats.

Nikki

10:43
Yeah, we’re wearing all the hats. So that can be really, really easy to fall into overwhelm with. But you just have to break it down and start, you know. I think we get stuck in the Oh my god, there’s so many things to do. I don’t know what to do. I can’t do any of them. And we need to tell ourselves to just start, like Bonnie Christine says, who is our surface design mentor? Do one thing every day. And you’ll make progress on on your goals.

Laura

11:16
Yes. And as Emily Jeffords also says progress is quiet and slow. So we don’t have to think that we’re gonna wake up tomorrow, and we’re gonna attack everything all at once.
When it comes to procrastination, I think sometimes the challenge I have is that the vision in my head isn’t what comes out when I’m creating art or music or whatever it is that I’m working on. Because you have a taste level that doesn’t quite match the output yet. And so I wanted to read this quote from Ira Glass, because I think it’s a fantastic one. And Ira Glass is the writer and producer of This American Life on NPR.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, and I wish someone told me.  All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there’s this gap for the first couple years.  You make stuff and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good. It has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you in the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they just quit. Most people I know who do interesting and creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. And we all go through this. And if you’re just starting out, or you are still in this phase, you got to know it’s normal. And the most important thing you can do is to do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap and your work will be as good as your ambitions.”

Nikki

13:00
That’s amazing.

Laura

13:01
And I love that.

Nikki

13:03
It’s so so true. It’s like if you if your hands could make what you’re seeing in your head.

Laura

13:12
Exactly.

Nikki

13:15
But he’s absolutely right. The only way to get there is to just keep doing the work, you know, and don’t give up because your work doesn’t come out how you imagined it would. You just keep working at it, you do a little bit every day. Which reminds me of a book that I love, by James Clear who has he’s, he’s an amazing author, he’s got one of the best email newsletters I’ve ever seen. But he wrote a book called Atomic Habits.

Laura

13:48
Mm hmm.

Nikki

13:48
And the subtitle is “Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results.” One of his main ideas is not striving for specific goals, but creating habits. So, I want to create this great big body of work, it’s not going to just appear out of nowhere. But if I do a little bit every day, 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, it’s gonna add up. And once you form one habit, it’s really easy to stack another habit on top of it.

Laura

14:23
I love that. I read that book as well. And I think that was one of the things I loved… was when he talked about habit stacking, and how you have one thing that you do, and then you stack another habit, you know, on top of that so that you do those two things together, but you don’t try to do all of the habits at once.

Nikki

14:41
Start with one… start with one really simple habit. And if you’re trying to start a regular daily drawing practice, don’t go say I’m going to go in my studio and complete a finished beautiful drawing every single day. Say I’m going to go in my studio and I’m going to draw for 10 minutes and make it easy for yourself, leave your pencils and your paper out or your iPad charged. You know, if you’re feeling that resistance about getting back in there, just say I’m just going to pick up that pencil and make a few marks. And you do that every day. And then you get bored with the marks and you start making flowers and patterns. And…

Laura

15:25
It’s breaking it down into simple, non intimidating steps. And there’s another author I love named Sark. And she does these hand-drawn books that are absolutely amazing. The entire book is written in her handwriting in different colors, because how awesome is that

Nikki

15:41
They’re beautiful.

Laura

15:42
And she talks a lot about micro movements, about breaking down big things into simple micro movements so small that there’s no way not to do them. I’ll write tomorrow. I’m going to set down a pencil and paper on my desk; that’s my micro movement for today. And you know, getting forward movement, because once you get the momentum started, it’s so much easier to keep going.
Another tool that I have found really helpful is a visual timer. Have you ever seen one of those, Nikki?

Nikki

16:15
Um, you’re talking about like an app, right? Or you’re talking about something physical?

Laura

16:20
Well, they have them both, you can get them like you could buy a physical one, I think on Amazon. But basically, it’s a visual clock that is like a egg timer, almost. But it has like a pie on it. And so I have a digital app called Time Timer that basically is that. And you can set it for, let’s say 15 minutes. So tomorrow…

Nikki

16:40
Wait, it’s called Time Timer?

Laura

16:42
I know isn’t that a weird name?

Nikki

16:44
What else would it be timing, besides time?

Laura

16:48
I don’t know who was in charge of coming up with that name. So you can change the colors on it though, which I love because usually the ones you buy that are physical or bright red. I like having mine magenta. And then I can say you know what, I’m going to set this timer for 15 minutes, and I’m going to draw for 15 minutes or for me, I’m also a musician. So I might sit down at the piano for 15 minutes and play. And what I’ll notice is if I carve out that 15 minutes, it very quickly can turn into 30 minutes or 45 minutes. And it helps continue that daily form of practice and getting little steps done and accomplished towards a goal.

Nikki

17:26
I feel like if I had a timer like that, I would just watch the timer count down. Like when I’m on a treadmill or an exercise bike, all I do is watch the timer. Oh my god, I still have 10 minutes.

Laura

17:37
That could be the case, I think it’s probably unique to the individual of what works.

So for those of you that are painters getting into a looser style can be really useful with this tool. I actually learned this practice from a workshop that I had attended a few years back, taking one of those timers and saying I’m going to give myself 30 minutes to complete an acrylic painting of abstract flowers, right? So if I have 30 minutes to complete the whole thing, I can’t be precious with my brushstroke.

Nikki

18:09
Yeah.

Laura

18:10
And so what ended up happening that was so interesting is that everybody’s work that they did quickly, ended up turning out so much more interesting than the ones that people were laboring over all of the details on.

Nikki

18:23
Yeah, that’s the same as all the figure drawing classes I took in college where you would do like, like 30 second gesture drawings, and blind contour drawings and all these things just to get you loosened up and into the mode.
If perfectionism is the reason you’re having trouble getting started, and you’re putting all that pressure that when you do something it has to be perfect, then putting a timer like that is a great way to say okay, I’m just going to make marks and draw or paint or whatever for five minutes, 15 minutes, whatever it is… 30 seconds, then you go in without expecting it to be perfect.

Laura

19:05
And some of it too is getting through, like the initial phase. Sometimes I can face a blank canvas or a blank sheet of watercolor paper or a blank, you know, iPad screen, whatever it is. And I can I can start it. But then you get to that one phase that is just the ugly duckling phase, right? Like you look at it, and you go, this is pretty much the worst thing that I’ve ever made in my entire life.

Nikki

19:28
So do you keep going or do you throw it out?

Laura

19:31
Well, I used to throw it out. Like I literally would have days where I would just throw something in the bin and every once in a while that still happens. There’s still stuff that hits the trashcan, for sure. But I also know that there is that ugly phase when you do enough work, you get to that point where you know, okay, this is normal. This is normal for me to hate it. And, you know, maybe I step away from it for a little bit and come back. But if I just keep going, I end up normally really liking it and it takes… but it’s like there’s this transformational moment when all of a sudden it starts clicking, and then you’re like, Oh, this isn’t so horrible anymore. So I think that the perfectionist tendencies, you know, if you can kind of work through that phase, it’s so helps in, you know, to get past into the end and have more of an appreciation for the process. And maybe that helps you not want to procrastinate as much starting other projects.

Nikki

20:21
I agree with all of that. I wonder how that approach can be adapted for things that aren’t creating art, like the business side of your business?

Laura

20:36
Mm hmm.

Nikki

20:37
You know, if you’re, if you have to write the copy for your website, if you have to design your website, if you are putting together a marketing plan, and and all the things you need to do are so overwhelming. How do you just get started with that?

Laura

20:55
Well, I found in that case, you know, I personally just went through re-building a website from scratch.

Nikki

21:01
Congratulations.

Laura

21:02
Thank you. And it was not easy. And Nikki, I have such an appreciation for what you do now. Can I just tell you…

Nikki

21:11
Yes, you can. No, don’t stop.

Laura

21:19
There are so many things, there are so many little things that you have no idea that you have to think about when it comes to website design.

Nikki

21:25
So many things.

Laura

21:26
You know, the pages, and the e-commerce, and the shop, and the getting the payments to function properly, and having your pictures the right size, and the content, and making it visually appealing. And so when you start thinking about all of these laundry list of steps that you have to do, it is so overwhelming, which for me, again, causes my procrastination. So, for example, I had a Siteground… I paid for Siteground hosting for two and a half years before I actually built my website I had one out there that was not great, but on an old server, but when I moved to psych, it took me two and a half years to get the kahunas to actually do this and put it together.

Nikki

22:14
Because it’s overwhelming.

Laura

22:16
It’s overwhelming. And the technology especially… for a lot of creatives, technology can be very daunting. And I think you have a rare brain where you can do both sides. I know my brain can do technical, strategic and financial and analytical things because that was my former career. But when it comes to the actual tech of the web design, and all of those things, I get very, very intimidated. So what I found helped me was breaking it down again into those smaller steps. And I think there’s some really good tools that help people do that, just, for example, starting this podcast.

Nikki

22:57
So we actually did a bunch of research about how to do that, because we were overwhelmed, we didn’t know where to start, we knew we had to record things and put them up online and edit them and do all these things. But we didn’t know all the steps. So we found a little course, that kind of broke it down. And project planning and project task management systems, again, can be your friends and help you break it down into manageable steps. And we definitely did that. We’re using a tool called ClickUp right now, which is my current favorite project management tool…that may change…it usually does. But right now I’m loving ClickUp and breaking it down, assigning tasks to… Well, if you’re working with somebody else, like we are on this, you know, Laura, you’re going to do all the audio editing, because that’s where your background is. I’m going to do the visual design and website because that’s what my background is. But even if it’s just one person, still break down the tasks, assign, figure out what order you need to do it in. And one of the things I’m trying to do right now that I think really helps is to try to give each task an estimate of time. Because you can easily say, you know… “research podcasting software” and spend days on it. But if I say okay, I’m going to spend two hours researching, and at the end of that two hours, I’m going to choose one – it’s so much easier to actually do it.

Laura

24:40
Yeah, I think it’s so funny because as human beings, I think we have this  tendency to get overwhelmed and have analysis paralysis. I know I face that not just in art but in everyday decisions. You know, I mean, you walk into the grocery store and how many choices of peanut butter do you have.  There’s so many…

Nikki

24:59
You had to pick peanut butter? You know I don’t like peanut butter!

Laura

25:02
Okay, let’s change it to chocolate. How many types of chocolate?

Nikki

25:05
Oh my gosh, how do you decide?

Laura

25:08
You know, it can really be paralyzing though, there is a book that is called the Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. And he also has a really great TED talk on the topic that we’ll stick in the show notes. The Paradox of Choice basically says that human beings, when they’re given too many choices are actually less happy than they are, when they’re given a smaller amount. Like, we want to have some choice, let’s say three choices. But if you’re given 20 choices, it’s overwhelming and we don’t take action. And it’s like, scientifically proven that human beings behave this way.

Nikki

25:45
I totally believe that, I always thought that, I’ll give you an example. On my website, I sell a lot of products with my artwork printed on them. And I always thought, oh, let’s just put it on everything, give people so many choices. But I’ve had so many people say I really want to buy one of your, I don’t know, pillows with your flowers on them. And they’re like, but there’s so many there’s like three different sizes and 20 different patterns to choose from. I couldn’t decide. So I didn’t choose one. And that is not what we’re going for.

Laura

26:23
No, it’s not. It’s not.

Nikki

26:26
That works on both ends. That works on us figuring out how to get things done. But it also works on your buyer, your consumer who can be paralyzed by the choice and not end up buying anything.

Laura

26:42
Right? Or if you want to teach online classes, and you review the hundred different platforms, and then never choose one. Because there’s so many. And then we’re paralyzed because we think if we don’t make the right choice right now that we’re stuck with it forever, like whatever choice we make… there’s no ability to shift  and just change course.

Nikki

27:04
Right? I can’t choose one because there’s a better one out there, and it’s gonna show up tomorrow. So…but yeah, it’s true, I mean, what you’re choosing, you’re choosing the best option for you right now, based on what you know, the knowledge you have now. And it’s better to just choose something that’s not perfect and get started than to wait around forever until the perfect situation comes along. You can always change it later.

Laura

27:35
Amen. Another way to beat procrastination is to surround yourself by people that you can be accountable to. And it really needs to be a support group, you know, that understands where you’re at, and perhaps is sharing along on that journey.

Nikki

27:51
Much like the accountability group that you and I met in Laura. We were randomly assigned a group of group of women, all sort of in the same area in their artistic journey, in their art business. And we meet once a week, still, to this day, even a year after the course we met in. And we just, we’re all struggling with the same things in our business. We’re all struggling with the overwhelm and the procrastination. But just having somebody who gets exactly what you’re going through, someone to bounce ideas off of someone to each week, we’ll say what we’re planning on working on for the next week. And then when we get together, we report back on how little of it we actually did.

Laura

28:39
Now what I will say is if we look back at what we’ve accomplished, since let’s say last year, when we first met, I think each of us has accomplished amazing things in our businesses and in just our own art development or own business development, than we would have had we been left to our own devices, because you’re accountable to that person to make forward steps and they are giving you fabulous feedback and great ideas, and maybe giving you an idea that you would never have thought of on your own on how to handle a specific situation. So I think that there’s such value in having that support group available.

Nikki

29:23
And that’s kind of a big part of why we started this podcast. This podcast is accountability for the two of us to keep making progress because we’re committing to sharing our progress with you. But we’d also love for you guys to join us and be sort of a virtual accountability group with us.

Laura

29:48
Definitely. And if you’re interested, we would love to have you join our Startist Society Facebook group where we can support each other.

Okay, so I think to wrap up this episode, we have, you know, three kind of key takeaways right, Nikki?

Nikki

30:05
So, the first key takeaway from this, I think, is, in order to avoid paralyzing overwhelm, break your bigger projects down into small bite-sized steps so that each one is not scary.

Laura

30:22
Yes, I think that number two would be to have a consistent practice every day, take one small step towards that goal that you have. And if you don’t have time in that day, schedule it in your week, if you happen to only have weekends to work on your business, have it be the weekend, but have it be consistent. And give yourself that time in your schedule to create habits that develop and push you forward.

Nikki

30:53
And the final thing that we’d like you to take away from this week’s topic is to find some way to get some accountability in your life, whether it’s a group that you form, or just another friend that’s doing something similar that you can be accountable to, or even joining our Facebook accountability group.

Thank you so much for following along on this journey with us as we figure out how to stop getting in our way and just get started on the next step in our business. We would love for you to subscribe to us in iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you like what you’ve heard so far, share it with a friend.

Laura

31:40
Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.