I met up with my friend, Jacinta Hin, on Friday night to talk about the goals we each have for 2010. We found a pleasant pub in Tokyo’s Ebisu district and over some fish and chips and a Guinness, started swapping stories.
It soon became clear that although we both have some solid goals and even plans to accomplish them, the w-o-r-k required is simply not getting done quickly enough.
And the culprit?
That old favorite – not enough time!
Ha! Dear Reader, are you perhaps familiar with that sorry excuse for under achieving? Well, for coaches it’s doubly embarrassing because we’re supposed to know this stuff and also have the magic tool box for dealing with the blockages.
Thing is… there’s no magic wand to kick procrastination to the kerb. And in my experience, willpower usually isn’t the answer either for reasons I discussed in improving personal productivity.
No, I think the solution is not to battle procrastination head-on, but rather to launch a series of flank attacks and feints (military metaphor time!)
What we decided to do was agree on a 30 day accountability experiment. Jacinta is going to (in fact she’s already started!) avoid her iPod movie addiction by posting regular updates on FaceBook (and possibly Twitter. I can’t exactly recall what was agreed after pint # 2 hehe!). The time saved will be available to work on her big goal.
I’ve decided to kick two habits in these next 30 days:
Habit #1 Internet news access for me is now only on Sundays.
Staying “in touch” daily was eating up almost one hour each evening BEFORE I got started on my big goal.
Habit #2 Drinking a beer with my evening meal weekdays. This one might seem trivial (it’s only a 350 ml can!) but the combined effect of being on the go since 6 am, along with alcohol, means I get dozy around 9pm. Yet, I’ve stuff I want to do between 9-11 pm. Something has to give, and it aint my goal!
One level of accountability is present because we will be updating each other via email.
And another level will be the public nature of releasing Internet status updates. In my case, I’ll be adding a comment to this post most every day for the month of June. If I miss one, please remind me 
OK, so let’s see how May 31st goes – the practice run! Evening meal’s about to be served. A beer would go well with it.
Let the experiment begin…
- Mark ‘ Procrastination Fixer‘ McClure
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Day 00 – Mon 31 May:
No beer
No Internet news distractions.
Worked on coaching japan website 8pm-11pm
1 June – on course.
Made some updates to new coaching course after dinner.
Had to skip planned evening run because body still tired after Sunday’s barefoot session plus only 4 hours sleep Monday night. Went to bed before 10pm
2-June
got that run in before dinner!
then added an article to the coaching site, changed the home page copy and enabled google analytics.
3-June
crashed (to bed) at 10:30 – early for me.
4-June
wrote a decent blog post after dinner – at the end of a busy week I’m pleased to be that productive on a Friday night.
Did some business reading.
5-June
Finished most of coachesinJapan site followed by good evening run
6-June
Firefox leechblock filter off for Sunday so I got to visit me banned sites haha!
Started work on improving samuraiwriter website and making it more targeted to what I do.
7-June:
work continues on copywriting web site redesign
8-June:
evening run but too tired to work afterward!
9-June:
attended daughter’s graduation ceremony.
drafting website homepage ideas on train commute.
10-June: Worked on website ideas for 30 mins
11-June: Tempted by can of zero % alcohol beer but relieved to hear my better half say “it tasted awful”. I stick to water.
12-June: Heat blisters from barefoot running on hot asphalt surface. Drafting copy for samuraiwriter.com update.
13-June: Blog posting.
14-June: forgot what I did!
15-June: early to bed for 4am webinar.
16-June: ditto
17-June: ditto
18-June: tired! World cup Germany/Serbia, then bed
19-June: 1st run since 12-June (blisters)
Still on track
20-June: work
21-June: dodged wine-tipped bullet in “dinner date with better half” as it was changed to lunchtime meal and Korean tea!
22-June: fish, chicken & water
23-June: sticky weather but sticking with ze plan.
24-June: evening run and crashed before 10:30 pm zzzz…
25-June: TGIF chill @ home
26-June: working on samuraiwriter site until 2am
27-June: easy bf run on grass
28-June: Evening meeting
29-June: bed before 10:30pm (humid)
30-June: work on website evening
Tomorrow night is celebration time