If you don’t like doing it, get help.

Procrastination is a form of avoidance- and sometimes, we procrastinate because it’s easier than having to face what we don’t like (or don’t want) to do. One of my clients from several years ago came to coaching with several thousand hours of interviews which needed to be transcribed and coded. When we began coaching, she couldn’t stand the thought of wading through these thousands of hours, nor could she stand the thought of not going through it. She felt that, since she had collected all this data "for the dissertation", she needed to use all this data for the dissertation (never mind that this amount of data would probably fill 100 dissertations). Anyway, through coaching, we began to understand that she was avoiding it because she didn’t like transcribing, but felt she "should". (It was "her data" "her work" "her dissertation")- but the problem was that all her "shoulds" weren’t getting done. The solution? We finally helped her reach out for help. She quickly listened to several of the tapes and picked out a certain number to be transcribed. She sent these off to a professional transcriber who returned these within two weeks. A huge hurdle had just been cleared and my client was able to make steady progress from that point onwards. If you find yourself procrastinating because you don’t like doing something- get creative about ways to get help. All burdens are lighter when they are shared (and even lighter when totally outsourced!).

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