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You’ve sat down to work on your big idea. You’ve cleared your calendar for the next 3 hours to focus. You are extremely excited, and then you hit a wall. I mean a big wall, a down the Netflix rabbit hole till 3 am, staring a blank sheet of paper, no closer to your goal, wall.
What happened? You had everything ready. You knew what all needed to be done. You decided to take your training program to the next level by adding a digital training option so you can expand your reach and help more people get in shape!

You had everything ready. You knew what all needed to be done. You decided to take your training program to the next level by adding a digital training option so you can expand your reach and help more people get in shape! You’ve found

You knew what all needed to be done. You decided to take your training program to the next level by adding a digital training option so you can expand your reach and help more people get in shape! You’ve found an awesome online program to use for digital sessions that allows you to do everything you’d do in a real life course (sans actually physical contact). You’ve even decided which customer relationship management system you want to use. Now all you have to do is design your coaching packages and set everything up. Seems simple enough but then you just sit there. It’s not that you’ve lost interest in what you wanted to do. It’s not that you can’t do it. You probably found yourself in one of these five mental and behavior blocks that sabotage your time management. Don’t feel bad, they happen to the best of us. Knowing these blocks is the first step to overcoming them.

Five mental blocks and behaviors that sabotage your productivity and time management

Getting hung up on your weaknesses

Okay, truth bomb time. You aren’t going to be great at everything. It sucks when you want to build something and parts of it isn’t perfect, or you have to rely on someone else to make it come to life. I know, gasp, the horror. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve spent many nights fighting back tears while trying to work on website development tasks. I will also admit that while most nights I fought through the desire to give up and forget whatever site change I was trying to make. Other nights I was less inclined to proceed and just stopped working. I don’t mean; I moved on to a different task. No, I mean a full on, “Nope. I’m done for the night. What’s on my DVR,” stop.

I’m not saying that it won’t happen sometimes, but by knowing that I am not exactly Mark Zuckerberg when it comes to development, I can do a few things to decrease these productivity killers.
For me it this looks like this:
Problem: I don’t have a lot of knowledge in website development.
Possible solutions: Hire someone to work on the things I can’t do myself. Take an online development course. Utilize the crap out of SiteGround‘s support team.

What are some things you struggle with but are a necessary part of your business model? Think of 3 different alternatives to help you lighten your load.

• Hire someone to do it
• Educate yourself or learn a new skill
• Find resources or alternative (To go with my example above if SiteGround isn’t able to help, I can do research or even ask a coworker in our development team)

Getting caught up in the things you hate doing

Maybe because it’s so mindless or maybe because it’s part of my day job but I am not the biggest fan of social media. Filling up my social media content each Sunday used to be daunting…to be honest; it still is sometimes. Just trying to search for relevant posts I agree with to share with my audience and stay valuable is a drag. When I first started, I was using the free version of HootSuite for my social media. This meant typing each post out every Sunday and scheduling it. While HootSuite is a great tool, it wasn’t what I needed.
When you have those tasks that drain you like email, social media, bookkeeping, etc. they have to be done, but they don’t have to kill your momentum or motivation.
Just like with the tasks that aren’t your strengths you have to find a way to do the tasks that you hate doing.
I keep my social media content updated with Buffer, not only does it allow me to add posts it schedules them for me automatically in the best time field, allows me to recycle posts and add feeds from my favorite websites quickly with its content feed feature. I still have to make the time to do this once a week, but now I can sit down and watch tv while I quickly feel up my feed.
Depending on the tasks that frustrate you, you need to determine a way to get them done more efficiently and with less pain.
Maybe you develop a reward system. “If I get to inbox zero I can have that Dove candy bar.”
Another thought is to schedule them for your most energetic or least active time of the day. Depending on you and your work style, you may find your job sessions are more productive if you do that annoying task first thing and get it out of the way. Perhaps you’re the other way. You know if you do the task you hate first thing you will be in a bad mood and not get any work done afterward. So you do all the stuff you need to tackle then that task you dread at the end. Perhaps you make a game out of it? “Let’s see if I can get five blog post pitches out in the next hour, last week I did 4. Maybe I can beat that record.”

If you are at a point where you can afford staff you can hire someone to do the task. Another option is automating the task or batching it, so you only have to deal with it once or twice a week.

Overthinking and overwhelm

This is probably the biggest culprit for me. I come from a long line of over-thinkers. My mom, grandpa and great grandma all worry warts. While I’m working hard to break that generational curse, it’s still a battle from time to time.
Often we find ourselves with a task at hand and it’s too much. While it’s important to know what the big picture is and what you want your result to be, it can be overwhelming. Remember, little by little becomes a lot. Refrain from trying to build an entire empire in a day.
Fun fact time: Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge took four years but before that construction start date in 1933, the first plan for the bridge was presented and rejected in 1916. It took multiple tries and countless people to get the project up and running. I’m not saying your project will take that long to happen or that you need a huge team of professionals. What I am saying is remember everything takes time. Instead of trying to take everything on at once break it down into smaller parts.
It’s easier to solve a small problem than a larger one. Instead of worrying about all the moving parts break down the big pieces into small actionable steps and get to work.

Spending more time planning than you do working

As a planner myself, I see people fall into this trap often. Yes, a goal without a plan is just a dream but plans don’t make things happen action does. You should regularly make time to plan out your goals and the steps it takes to achieve them but doesn’t over do it. If you are spending two hours every day planning your day you are probably overdoing it.
As a team of 1 with the occasional VA, I aim to do a 90-day planning session that takes about 2-3 hours. Then a monthly planning session that takes about an hour and a half an hour on Sundays to plan out that how to break up that week’s goal into daily tasks.
You need to plan but don’t go overboard. If you spend all your time planning you aren’t spending enough time doing.
It takes action to get results!

[bctt tweet=”You need to plan but don’t go overboard. If you spend all your time planning you aren’t spending enough time doing.” username=”Diadoll”]

[bctt tweet=”A goal without a plan is just a dream.” username=”Diadoll”]

[bctt tweet=”It takes action to get results! ” username=”Diadoll”]

Doing things you don’t have to do

You have to do YouTube videos. 

You need a podcast. 

You should post on your blog every day.

You have to build your email list.

Are you on Instagram? 

You’re snap chatting right?

Make sure you do Facebook Live at least five times a week.

It’s easy to feel like we all have to do all the things but not everything is necessary and not everything will work for you. Figure out what you need to do, not what everyone else is doing or what others are telling you to do. Don’t feel the need to be on every single social media site when you’re starting out. Do what you need to do and as things get easier or more streamlined, then you can test out new things. Trying to do all the things before you are ready can bring on that paralyzing productivity killing feeling. This doesn’t just apply to social media either. If you hate being on video don’t start a YouTube channel, start with live streams and webinars to help you build up that muscle. Before I launched my podcast, I played with audio on select posts to get a feel for it.

It’s easy to let these things stop us in our tracks but if you’re honest with yourself about your strengths, weaknesses, time and direction, then you can push past these blocks.
If you’re ready to do this snag my Productivity Checklist or if you need more help you can work with me in one of my productivity and time management coaching packages.