Procrastinating right now?

Procrastinating right now?

You’re not alone.

182 content folks responded to a poll I ran in TOFU and on Linkedin asking:

How’s your relationship with procrastination?

63 answered “basically married” – and 72 said “closer than I’d like”.

Which means a whopping 74% of us struggle to wrestle our brains into actually doing the thing we're meant to be doing 😬

The silver lining?

We’ve all had plenty practice coming up with weird and wonderful ways to keep procrastination at bay.

Here are six productivity strategies the TOFU community swears by…

(pssst, stick around till the end – we're running FREE co-working sessions next week to help you actually get stuff done 👀)1. Spiky content 🌵

Listen to what your procrastination is telling you

When I notice that I’ve started procrastinating, I usually take a four-step approach to get me back on track:

1. Berate myself for not doing the thing that needs doing

2. Work for a couple mins

3. Open LinkedIn again (omg what 16-year-old me would say if he knew I procrastinate on LinkedIn, btw 🫠)

4. Repeat until the task is done (several hours later than I’d planned it to be)

Luckily, some TOFU members have a much healthier relationship with productivity than me. 

They recognise that when the urge to procrastinate bubbles up, hitting pause is – counterintuitively – more productive than powering through. 

Douglas treats procrastination as a sign:

As does Kristin:

Want to try this new approach to productivity on for size?

Gwendoline has some great advice for anyone looking to process why it is they’re dragging their heels on a task:

Get to know your quirks

Kristin is a lot less affected by procrastination if she tackles her most dreaded tasks before her brain has had a chance to wake up properly:

Charly has to respond to work emails straight away, or she forgets about them (same!):

Douglas knows that if he’ll write an article faster if he skips the intro, then comes back to it:

And Tamara has learned she can give herself a productivity boost by heading to the library:

We all have our own weird quirks.

Get to know yours and you can start stacking the deck in your favour rather than feeling like every workday is an uphill struggle. 

Pick the right music

Tonnes of TOFU members use music to get them in the zone.

Gwendoline likes a bit of lo-fi.

Douglas’s current fave is synthwave.

Tamara swears by the This Is Led Zeppelin playlist on Spotify.

And Mike Straus?

A music-related productivity hack I picked up from Ryan Holiday: put a catchy song on repeat. I don’t know why this works, but it really helps you lock in to what you’re doing (and ruin the song you pick, so avoid 

Pomodoro technique 

Tamara and Kristin both say the pomodoro technique (25 minute bursts of focused work with 5 minute breaks in-between them) helps them power through their to-do lists.

I know it’s how my guy Glen Allsopp gets so much done, too. 

Here’s what he said about the pomodoro technique in a tweet a little while back:

Embrace productive procrastination

A lot of TOFU members channel their procrastination to at least get something done – even if it’s not that article with the looming deadline…

A tidy house is better than an afternoon of doomscrolling, right?

“Practice productive procrastination” is actually advice Austin Kleon gives in his book Steal Like an Artist:

Body doubling

Katarina is a big fan of body doubling (hopping on a video call with someone else and working “alongside” them).

And I’m right there with her!

The two virtual co-working sessions I host for MOFU members each week are basically the only two hours on my calendar I can guarantee I’ll be getting work done 🫣

I know Tyler is a big fan of them, too (he runs two MOFU co-working sessions each week as well)

So, to do our bit to help you all keep procrastination at bay…

For next week only, we're opening all four of our weekly MOFU co-working sessions to everyone – completely free 🎉

If you’re never joined a virtual co-working sesh before, here’s how they work:

• Join a video call with a handful of folks who want to get stuff done

• Everyone quickly runs through what they’re going to get done during the session

• Everyone mutes their mics, puts their heads down, and gets stuff done 🔥

• Everyone ends the session by sharing how they got on and celebrating their wins together 🥳 

Here’s when next week’s virtual co-working sessions are going down:

• Monday, Feb 2 – 10am GMT / 5am ET today → MOFU co-working w/ me

• Tuesday, Feb 3 – 10am GMT / 5am ET → MOFU co-working w/ me

• Wednesday, Feb 4 – 5pm GMT / 1pm ET → MOFU co-working w/ Tyler

• Thursday, Feb 5 – 4pm GMT / 12pm ET → MOFU co-working w/ Tyler

Come join us to get some 💩 done!

Fair warning: spots are limited and could fill up fast. 

So if you want in, grab your spot here now:

👉 Sign up to next week’s FREE co-working sessions here