What To Do When Motivation Won’t Show Up with Robin J. Emdon | RR333

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Rob, Hello everyone, and welcome to this

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week's episode of relationships rule. Today's guest is Robin J

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Emden, known as the procrastination Slayer and

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momentum architect. Robin is the creator of get results ology, a

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system designed to help solopreneurs and business owners

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move past procrastination, build momentum, and finally follow

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through on what matters most. He knows the challenges of trying

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to do everything yourself, and he's built a framework that

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turns scattered effort into consistent progress. And today

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I'm looking to explore a little bit about Robin's journey and

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how business owners like myself can apply his system and why

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relationships and accountability play such a powerful role in

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keeping us on track. Welcome to the show, Robin.

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Robin J. Emdon: Thank you so much. I'm really honored to be

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here. Thank you for inviting me

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My pleasure. I enjoyed my experience on your

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podcast, and thought it would be fun to have you share with my

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listeners your system. And because I'm one of these people,

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I swear at the older I've gotten, the more I was never

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diagnosed as ADHD ever in my life. I was very, always

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systematic and left brain about things that I did. But the older

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I've gotten, and the more I've gotten into being my, my my own

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boss, and also with the with information being so, you know,

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we're inundated with it, and I'm such a curious person that I

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want to know more about things that come across my path, that

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I've become like that, you know, the squirrel right going down

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the rabbit holes. And therefore I, you know, I lose some of the

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organization that I thought I had. I used to be a professional

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organizer, believe it or not, in one part of my life, and now

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it's out the window. So I am very curious about, you know,

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your business and how it can help me. I'm being selfish about

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that. So let's start with you being the procrastination

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Slayer. What is that? How does that resonate with your clients

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and and and what you know? Where can we go with that?

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Robin J. Emdon: Well, okay, so couple of things. Yeah, it's not

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just you. I grew up? I grew up in a village here in England,

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where my neighbor, who was a lot older than me, she was old

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enough to be my mother, maybe even my grandmother, had never

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traveled in her entire life more than six miles from where she

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was now living, Oh, wow. And that was just, and when you know

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we talked about it, she said, Well, nobody did you know you

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were the elite and very wealthy, and that was your job. But

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nobody moved around. And now we live in an age where, with

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thanks to that dopamine junkie thing that we call a mobile

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phone in our pocket. We travel virtually around the world

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hundreds of times an hour, just scrolling through, oh, I want to

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look at this. I want to look at that. And that's just one. I

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mean, that is probably the worst invention for for distractions

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in the world, as in, it's brilliant at doing that. So it

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isn't just you, it's the age we live in. Everything's changed,

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and I'm sure everybody listening will understand that, that we're

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just being bombarded from all conceivable directions. But in

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order to ask you a question, I need to explain that I wasn't a

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procrastination Slayer. I was a procrastinator. I am. I still

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self identify as a chronic procrastinator. Oh, really, that

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distinction. 95% of people, when asked, will own up to

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procrastinating. Sometimes we all procrastinate a little bit.

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You know, we're going to do the dishes after dinner. Now, I'll

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do them in the morning. Who cares? You know, we all do that

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from time to time. Well, maybe not fastidiously tidy people,

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but the rest of us do. But of the 95% one in five of those 20%

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will own up to being chronic procrastinators. And a chronic

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procrastinator is somebody like me who realizes that it's life

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changing, life impacting, it's damaging, procrastination. It's,

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it's, what's the word? It's well, the word is chronic. It's

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constantly there. And so what happened was, for me, was I, my

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background is I trained way back in 2001 on an invitation any

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event with with Tony Robbins in California, where I was training

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to work for him as a life coach. And as things turned out, his

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plans changed. My plans changed. I'm from England, and he wasn't

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interested in remote workers at that time. We had Skype, but

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that wasn't his model. And anyway, his plans moved on from

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there. And I didn't want to move to California. I had a family

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back here in England, and so I I, I was concentrating on those.

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And I set up my own life coaching business here. And

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then. As luck would have it, three or four years later, I

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became a full time single dad, and I put the coaching down, and

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then cut forward to 2019 and I'm in a coffee shop talking to my

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older brother. I'm bragging. I've just got my degree. Look at

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me, aren't I brilliant? I studied at home, and I finally

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got my degree, and my brother was falling asleep with boredom.

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He didn't care. That's what families are for, you know. So I

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thought, I've got to wake him up otherwise. And he was starting

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to look at his watch about thinking about going. And I

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said, mind you. I said, Trust me to take 10 years to do something

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I should have done in six. And he lit his eyes lit up, and he

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went, Yeah, what was that about? You know? And I went, Oh, you

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know, procrastination. And I laughed and changed the subject.

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And then when I was driving home, I had not a literal face

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palm moment, because I would have crashed the car, but I had

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a face palm moment, hands on face mentally, when I was like,

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hang on a minute, Robin, you're a trained life coach. How dare

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you procrastinate? How dare you take 10 years to do something

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you should have done in six and I thought, I've got a square

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this circle. That's not right. Why am I? Why am I? Why am I

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procrastinating? And the other question I had was, Why have I

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only just noticed? And I realized I always used to think

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about procrastination up until that point, which I realized had

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impacted my whole life, every area of my life. I always

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thought of it like we used to think about the common cold. I

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say used to, because these days we tend to think about, you

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know, it could be a sniffle, could be something more serious,

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but then in 2019 and before everyone, I'll just work through

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this cold. Oh, procrastinating. I'll just do it tomorrow. Hello,

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that's the mantra of the chronic procrastinator, isn't it?

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Tomorrow. So I had this face palm moment. I was embarrassed.

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I was when I started to think about the cost of it in terms of

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the impact on my relationships, my career, my finances, my

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health, every aspect of my life was impacted by it. So by the

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time I got home, I was both really angry with myself and

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really, really emotionally distraught and upset. And I rang

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my brother, and I said, Oh, just remind me. You know, you used,

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used to be a mental health professional, and I've done all

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these dozens of days with Robins. What was the cure again,

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for procrastination? I had a little mental notepaper and pen

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there and and there was a long pause, and then a sharp intake

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of breath. He went, I don't know what. Well, if you don't know,

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and I'm struggling, I'm really struggling to think about what

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it is. Well, crikey. And then we had the gift that keeps on

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giving, which was covid, as I mentioned. And I only mean it in

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the sense of the gift was unbelievable amount of time in

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lockdown, right? So I decided to look at the research. I

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originally thought, I'm going to research it, and of course, I

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discovered quite quickly that, for example, in 110 year period,

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in the early 2000s they had done over 900 research papers into

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procrastination and productivity. So I thought, oh,

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okay, I don't need to research it, but I do need to bring the

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common strands together. And hello, I've got a degree. I know

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how to do that, right? I started writing it down, and I started

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putting it into a book. And I thought, well, I need to what

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became just I was writing it down for me. I thought,

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actually, I could serve a bigger community, because I bet you, I

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wonder if I'm the only person in the world working for myself.

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Nice coffee machine, nice view from the window, flexible hours.

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Sat in front of the TV, not working, reading a book. We're

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going for walks rather than working, doing anything but

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working, playing and scrolling Doom scrolling on the phone. You

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know? Oh, cat video, oh another cat video, oh, another cat Oh,

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that's cool. Oh, there's a dog video that was quite funny.

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That's a dog and cat video, I can't be the only one, and I

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know I'm not the only one. And so I thought, okay, I really

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need to find the solution to this. And so the result was, was

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the book, which only came out last April this year,

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right? Congratulations. Questions come

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up just from listening to your story again, because I did hear

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it and looked into it before, but you took 10 years to get a

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six year degree. I'm not going to get into details, but first

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of all, what was the degree in?

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Robin J. Emdon: Okay, that was with the British Open

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University, which is a government run in university and

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in the I started off doing psychology, obviously, with my

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leaning, but I didn't like psychology. I thought it sucked.

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That was sorry for psychologists out there. It wasn't for me.

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There was too many, too much maths. That was my problem with

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it. And then I so I then added philosophy to it, and then I

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added the thing I'm really passionate about, which is

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completely unrelated, Roman history.

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Okay, all right, that's fair enough. Okay, so

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because what I wanted to ask about, well, obviously you

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learned how to research and so on getting your degree. And

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that's, that's what

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Robin J. Emdon: research is. The critical thing, the what value,

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how to evaluate the research,

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right? Okay, but what comes to mind for me is

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like, when I don't know, like, um. That is what took you

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longer. Yes, you procrastinated, but because you didn't like what

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you were doing. And the same with people who are solopreneurs

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and business owners. Do we procrastinate because we're

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procrastinating on the parts of the thing that we don't like, or

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just that we've taken on too much because

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Robin J. Emdon: all of the above, all of it, okay, all of

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it. There's so many reasons I procrastinate. But here's the

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kicker, what I found with the research was it was, I was I

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found myself quickly getting drawn into the sciences, and I'm

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not a scientist. My last exam at school, I got 9% in biology, and

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that's because I spelled my name right. No joke, the teacher felt

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sorry for me, okay, but I found myself looking at neurology,

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psychology, neurosciences, because procrastination is an

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inside job. We are hard wired to procrastinate, really? Tavia,

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yes, yes, obviously. I mean, it's, it sounds obvious when you

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say it, but, but it may not be so obvious. It wasn't to me, but

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we're hard, right? It's our natural behavior. It comes from

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its

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nature. But we can change that. We can or we

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learn it. We can manage,

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Robin J. Emdon: manage it, and that's the critical thing. And

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some people are better at managing it than others. Some

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people, you know, I've got a friend in California, and I was

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telling her what I was doing. Oh, I'm writing a book on

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procrastination and how to be more productive. Oh, do people

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struggle with that, really? And I was like, she wasn't being

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sarcastic. She was being serious. She's a very successful

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businesswoman. She's never had a procrastination day in her life.

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And I was like, and for me, I was like, oh, successfully is

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clues. Let me pick your brain. But there are people like that,

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and they're not going to be interested in my book, and

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they're not going to they're probably not going to be

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listening with respect. They won't be listening to this

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because there are. It's not a problem for me, right? But 95%

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of people said that it is a problem for them. Of those, one

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in five said it's a major problem for them. That's a lot

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of people.

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Yes, it is okay. So for business owners and

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solopreneurs who would be interested in listening to this

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podcast, what's the first step they can take to implement your

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system into their daily work happening?

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Robin J. Emdon: So let me, so let me I didn't properly, fully

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answered your question, so I'll answer both questions, but this

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way. The first thing is, the way the book is laid out is it's

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three sections. The first you need to you need to do three

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things. You need to understand that you're procrastinating. And

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the easy way to remember what I mean by that. So I'm teaching

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people to fish, rather than giving them the fish people.

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Several people say, Oh, just tell me how to cure it. I can't

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just tell you. You have to understand it. Okay, because,

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and here's why, if you get to the end of the year and you

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don't have enough money, you can always make more money. Money is

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infinite. Governments print it now, we can't print it. We go to

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jail, but we can make more we if we can figure it out. But if you

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get to the end of the year and you've procrastinated that time

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away, it's gone forever, you can't get it back. So the time

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to catch procrastination is not after, when you realize it's too

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late, but before, before it's too late. So I was literally,

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literally sat on the sofa this morning reading a book before I

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went to work, and I read for too long, and I thought, Robin,

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you're procrastinating right now. Oh, okay, right. I know, I

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know I'm doing that. I caught it and I dealt with it. I

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went to work because you identified. You knew

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what it was. You Yes, and now in your brain,

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Robin J. Emdon: I'm oversimplifying it a little bit,

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but yes, you need to be you need to catch it. It's too late if

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you're just full of regret about like in my case, decades of

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progressive literally decades. So that's the first thing. And

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then the second thing is you need to you need strategy after

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you understand it. You need strategies to deal with it. And

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there are multiple strategies in my book, because no two people

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are the same, and no single strategy works the same way for

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this for different people. So I have what I call a little pick

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and mix, or a toolbox of different strategies, and I

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invite you to try them all and find out which works for you.

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Some will work harder than others, and that's all about

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motivation. Getting motivated because going right back full

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circle to an earlier question of yours, the reason you are

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procrastinating is because you're not passionate about

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something that you're doing. You might think you are, but the

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thing that you're doing right now, or supposed to be doing

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right now, you may be overwhelmed by it. You may be

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just just not there's just not your thing, right? So all of

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these things kick in, and you just, I'd rather do something

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that I'm familiar and comfortable with. And I go into

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the book, I go quite deep into the psychology of what's really

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going on, so that you can fully understand why you're not

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passionate about it and what you need to do to turn that around.

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And then there's that, that N word motivation is what you're

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after. How do you get motivated? And I tackle that in the book.

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So if I may, Janice do. Bearing in mind that we don't have a lot

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of time. I'll give you the crown jewels because I don't want to

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talk around it. I want to give you your list. Okay, right? So I

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will. But when someone says to me, well, what's the, what's

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the, what's the solution? Oh, you know, I just said

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flippantly, well, I can't leave you that I'm going to give you

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the solution, because I think it will help. Now, once you

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understand you're procrastinating. What you need

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is you need the in your inner productivity team. I call them

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the productivity trifecta. It's an inside job, because inside

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your brain, there are now, I don't understand science, so

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apologies to people that are for me oversimplifying, but I'm a

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communicator. I try to communicate, and I hope that by

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the time you've listened to this, you will understand, at a

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level I understand, if you're a neuroscientist, you're going to

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be your hands will be on your face. What the hell's it? So in

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the in your brain, you have right at the heart of your brain

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is the limbic system, which is where the procrastination comes

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from. It's the most basic part of the human brain. If you think

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about it, your brain has two jobs. Job Number one, survive.

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Job Number two, procreate. That's it. There is nothing

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else. Everything else is icing on the cake. Everything what you

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do with your brain, you have to survive. You have to procreate,

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that survival of the species. That's it. And the limbic system

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is in charge of that. And it's instinctive. It works very, very

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fast. It's where your fight, flight and freeze response comes

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from. It's also what we call threat modality. When you feel

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threatened, it triggers the limbic system. Now, it used to

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be that a man eating Tiger walking towards you, thinking

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lunch, that would be enough of the threat to trigger your

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limbic system, and then you either fight, or you fight or

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you freeze, right? So flight or fight or freeze. But we don't

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have man eating tigers in great numbers anymore. Some parts of

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the world do, but not many, thank goodness. But what we do

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have our man eating issues, relationship issues and argument

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with our nearest and dearest, health issues, our own health.

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We health issues with our loved ones that really stress us out,

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bills that we can't pay, landlords that are trying to

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evict us, bosses that get on our case. All the things that stress

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us out are triggering the limbic system. And when you're

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stressed, when you're worried about things, you shut down, and

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that's when procrastination kicks in. Because

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procrastination is, how do I make myself feel more

Janice Porter: 00:17:25

comfortable right now, you go to something familiar, not

Janice Porter: 00:17:28

something that makes you even more uncomfortable. So it'll be

Janice Porter: 00:17:32

whatever is familiar to you. It'll be, you know, food. I

Janice Porter: 00:17:36

mean, I, since I've done this, I was, I said, I suddenly realized

Janice Porter: 00:17:39

the other day, crikey. You know, I've lost 60 pounds since. I

Janice Porter: 00:17:44

Since in the last year, and, oh yeah, yeah, it was a conscious

Janice Porter: 00:17:47

effort, but before, I never succeeded in losing that much

Janice Porter: 00:17:50

weight because I was too stressed all the time.

Janice Porter: 00:17:53

You're emotional, emotional eating,

Janice Porter: 00:17:55

Robin J. Emdon: emotional eating. And I, as a byproduct of

Janice Porter: 00:17:59

this, I've lost 60 pounds. I'm not, I'm not selling it as a

Janice Porter: 00:18:01

diet program, but I'm pretty pleased that that I got that

Janice Porter: 00:18:05

from it. Yeah, so, but, but the so that's your limbic system now

Janice Porter: 00:18:10

at the front of your brain, at the top of your brain and your

Janice Porter: 00:18:13

forehead, is the prefrontal cortex, which, evolutionary

Janice Porter: 00:18:16

speaking, is a much younger part of your brain, and it's where

Janice Porter: 00:18:19

the reward modality is triggered. And we're really

Janice Porter: 00:18:22

interested in the reward modality. If you're a student

Janice Porter: 00:18:25

and you're under 25 you're in trouble because it hasn't fully

Janice Porter: 00:18:29

formed yet. That's why the students are the biggest

Janice Porter: 00:18:31

procrastinator bodies in body in the world, because a you've got

Janice Porter: 00:18:36

your newfound freedom, moving away from home, and you don't

Janice Porter: 00:18:39

want to work, you want to play and drink and all the things

Janice Porter: 00:18:42

that students do because you're young and healthy and your

Janice Porter: 00:18:46

prefrontal cortex isn't fully formed anyway, which means that

Janice Porter: 00:18:49

your rational thinking isn't fully in place, right? So the

Janice Porter: 00:18:53

way I try to explain this is in now that's the bit of the

Janice Porter: 00:18:56

science. I'm going to give you three more scientific words, and

Janice Porter: 00:18:59

then I'm going to explain it in plain English, in terms of

Janice Porter: 00:19:02

getting more productive, you need three you need three

Janice Porter: 00:19:05

neurotransmitters working effect efficiently in your brain to get

Janice Porter: 00:19:09

you into peak performance. They are dopamine. You've heard of

Janice Porter: 00:19:13

that one that's pot famous one. There's acetylcholine and

Janice Porter: 00:19:16

there's noradrenaline, and I took me, it took me, like six

Janice Porter: 00:19:20

months to memorize those three words, because I'm terrible with

Janice Porter: 00:19:23

stuff like that, so I decided to write them into a language that

Janice Porter: 00:19:26

I understood. What do they do? And I created just three easy to

Janice Porter: 00:19:31

remain easy to remember. Ways of remembering them. The dopamine

Janice Porter: 00:19:36

is the conductor, like the conductor of an orchestra, and

Janice Porter: 00:19:38

the conductor sits up there in the prefrontal cortex, and it

Janice Porter: 00:19:41

takes the cacophony of the different noises that all the

Janice Porter: 00:19:44

instruments make and and gives them sheet music that blends

Janice Porter: 00:19:48

them all together harmoniously. And then you end up with the

Janice Porter: 00:19:51

conductor conducting, making the music of your life, right? So

Janice Porter: 00:19:55

they're in charge. Then you need the scholar. Now the scholar.

Janice Porter: 00:20:00

Provides acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is the

Janice Porter: 00:20:03

neurotransmitter that creates focus, and you know when it's

Janice Porter: 00:20:08

present? Because when you sit down to do work for like, five

Janice Porter: 00:20:11

minutes, and you get deeply into what you're doing, and you look

Janice Porter: 00:20:14

up at the clock after five minutes and you realize an

Janice Porter: 00:20:16

hour's gone by, that's because you were focused, and that's

Janice Porter: 00:20:19

because acetylcholine was present. Here's the kicker in

Janice Porter: 00:20:22

children as to co line is produced naturally and is just

Janice Porter: 00:20:25

present. That's why children are brilliant at focusing. That's

Janice Porter: 00:20:28

why they're some, some, well, some, but that's why. But they

Janice Porter: 00:20:32

learn. Children learn to speak a language, to understand a

Janice Porter: 00:20:36

language, to learn to walk, to run, to do the most phenomenal

Janice Porter: 00:20:39

things in the shortest it still takes a long time. Still takes

Janice Porter: 00:20:43

10 years or so, but in a very short space of time compared to

Janice Porter: 00:20:46

the struggle we have as adults, when acetylcholine is no longer

Janice Porter: 00:20:49

present and we have to generate it by forcing ourselves to

Janice Porter: 00:20:53

focus. But in children, yeah, children are easily distracted,

Janice Porter: 00:20:56

for sure, like a child with gas. Hello, you know, oh, I'm

Janice Porter: 00:21:00

watching, oh, I've got gas. But if you think about it, children

Janice Porter: 00:21:04

are actually brilliant at focusing. They'll sit and stare

Janice Porter: 00:21:07

and watch their parents for hours and hours and hours whilst

Janice Porter: 00:21:09

they absorb the language.

Janice Porter: 00:21:10

And then, well, you're talking about infants.

Janice Porter: 00:21:13

I'm talking about school age children.

Janice Porter: 00:21:17

Robin J. Emdon: I'm talking about young children. Got it,

Janice Porter: 00:21:19

okay, yeah, well, you have to learn because it's survival.

Janice Porter: 00:21:23

Yes, it's fantastic to watch. Yeah, they're still vulnerable,

Janice Porter: 00:21:27

but so they have to learn to survive as quickly as they can.

Janice Porter: 00:21:30

It's years. Yes, no, I get it. If you've ever tried to learn a

Janice Porter: 00:21:34

language as an adult, you know it's much harder, difficult,

Janice Porter: 00:21:36

yeah, the time you did your child. So that's the as to co

Janice Porter: 00:21:40

line. That's the scholar, and that's focus. You need to be

Janice Porter: 00:21:43

focused. And the final one is noradrenaline. And Jordan.

Janice Porter: 00:21:46

Noradrenaline, I describe that as the fun sized warrior, like

Janice Porter: 00:21:49

fun sized chocolate bars that you have in your children's pack

Janice Porter: 00:21:52

lunches. And the not the big warrior. The big warrior is what

Janice Porter: 00:21:56

you need to fight a tiger or a war if you're a soldier and you

Janice Porter: 00:21:59

need them, but that bring that produces another

Janice Porter: 00:22:02

neurotransmitter called cortisol, and you don't want

Janice Porter: 00:22:04

that if you're trying to work. You want it if you're trying to

Janice Porter: 00:22:08

kill a tiger or run from a tiger, but you don't want it at

Janice Porter: 00:22:10

work because it's too much. It shuts down the conductor. It

Janice Porter: 00:22:13

locks them out of the building. You don't think rationally. You

Janice Porter: 00:22:17

think instinctively. Which has its place in the survival

Janice Porter: 00:22:20

mechanism, but it doesn't have its place in the office very

Janice Porter: 00:22:23

often. It's very unlikely that you're going to need it in your

Janice Porter: 00:22:26

day to day life. The Fun Size warrior, though, is just like

Janice Porter: 00:22:30

I'm talking to you now, I'm sat, I'm literally sat on the edge of

Janice Porter: 00:22:33

my chair, because I'm focused, and I'm also keeping up my

Janice Porter: 00:22:36

energy as I talk to you and try not to lose my train of thought,

Janice Porter: 00:22:40

because I'm really doing that normally. So there we go. I've

Janice Porter: 00:22:44

just lost it then. So the point is, is that the fun size warrior

Janice Porter: 00:22:48

just gives you that little bit of edge, that little bit of

Janice Porter: 00:22:51

anxiety, that little bit of stress, which James clear

Janice Porter: 00:22:53

beautifully summarizes it in his Goldilocks principle, not too

Janice Porter: 00:22:57

much, not too little, just enough. All right, so you need

Janice Porter: 00:23:01

that those three, the conductor, the scholar and the fun size

Janice Porter: 00:23:06

warrior. And that's what I when I work with my clients, and it's

Janice Porter: 00:23:09

in the book, that's what I teach them, that you need those three

Janice Porter: 00:23:14

avatars in the building your productivity Trifecta to get you

Janice Porter: 00:23:18

into the groove of productivity. I use the Madonna into the

Janice Porter: 00:23:22

groove, a great, lovely little, uh, music worm that goes around

Janice Porter: 00:23:26

in my head. I'm into the groove, like a like the groove on a

Janice Porter: 00:23:28

vinyl record. You want to get the stylus in it. You don't want

Janice Porter: 00:23:31

it to jump out. It has to go in, to go around, to get the whole

Janice Porter: 00:23:34

thing done. Wow.

Janice Porter: 00:23:37

Okay, so it's a couple of things come to mind.

Janice Porter: 00:23:41

One is projects. So when August was a little bit of a slow

Janice Porter: 00:23:50

month, client wise, a great time to start a project and a longer

Janice Porter: 00:23:56

term project and so forth. And I have two that I started, neither

Janice Porter: 00:24:01

have I finished, right? And they're kind of halfway there,

Janice Porter: 00:24:08

but they're not done, and they need to be done before the end

Janice Porter: 00:24:11

of September. But now, of course, it's gotten busier, and

Janice Porter: 00:24:15

the everyday stuff gets in the way, and I feel like I'm

Janice Porter: 00:24:20

procrastinating, because I always tell this story about

Janice Porter: 00:24:24

somebody told me once about we must empty the fountain. Do you

Janice Porter: 00:24:29

know that little story where the couple are talking to each other

Janice Porter: 00:24:33

constantly? We got to get that fountain outside, in the, you

Janice Porter: 00:24:36

know, driveway. We've got to get that fountain drained before

Janice Porter: 00:24:39

winter comes. We have to get it drained before winter comes and

Janice Porter: 00:24:42

they keep telling each other, but nobody does anything, and

Janice Porter: 00:24:45

when they finally get to it, they realize it took 20 minutes.

Janice Porter: 00:24:50

It took them longer to procrastinate and go through

Janice Porter: 00:24:53

this trauma. Yeah. And so, where does that in your. This system,

Janice Porter: 00:25:02

I feel like I should, you know, snap a finger and get back into

Janice Porter: 00:25:06

it. But how do I get myself back into that?

Janice Porter: 00:25:09

Robin J. Emdon: Okay, so that's a very that's that cuts to the

Janice Porter: 00:25:14

cuts to the chest, doesn't it? So you need so the kind of

Janice Porter: 00:25:19

things that I do when I'm working with clients is we talk

Janice Porter: 00:25:22

about building structure into your life, structure and

Janice Porter: 00:25:25

routine. Because although it sounds obvious, if you have a

Janice Porter: 00:25:30

structure and a routine, that means that things are pre

Janice Porter: 00:25:32

decided. Pre decided is easy. It's the stuff that's not pre

Janice Porter: 00:25:37

decided. It's the stuff that feels a little bit overwhelming.

Janice Porter: 00:25:40

It's the worry, like you say, it's the thinking about it,

Janice Porter: 00:25:43

rather than just the doing it, right? So you need, you need

Janice Porter: 00:25:45

structure. The other thing is, is you need, is you need

Janice Porter: 00:25:50

feedback? So that's where accountability comes in. We

Janice Porter: 00:25:54

provide feedback and we and it isn't about accountability, by

Janice Porter: 00:25:57

the way. It's not about applying pressure. It's about giving you

Janice Porter: 00:26:01

permission to follow through.

Janice Porter: 00:26:04

Can I just interject here for a second?

Janice Porter: 00:26:06

Because I can hear myself when I'm talking to prospects doing

Janice Porter: 00:26:12

it with or for them, but when it comes to me, I get caught right?

Janice Porter: 00:26:16

So I talked to a gentleman this morning who wants to do some

Janice Porter: 00:26:22

LinkedIn training, and great. And I, I'm he's a perfect client

Janice Porter: 00:26:27

for me, and I'm really excited about and he said to me, the

Janice Porter: 00:26:29

problem Janice is the time. And I said, No, I think the problem

Janice Porter: 00:26:34

is prioritizing the time, right? Because I get that. We all have

Janice Porter: 00:26:40

that issue with time and choosing, but it's choosing.

Janice Porter: 00:26:43

It's choosing whether we actually want to do it or not.

Janice Porter: 00:26:46

Robin J. Emdon: Oh yes. I mean, that's something I'd cover again

Janice Porter: 00:26:48

in the book. Yes, good. But you reminded me, yeah, for example,

Janice Porter: 00:26:53

procrastination is not laziness, no. So someone who is lazy, I

Janice Porter: 00:26:59

point out in the book that one person's laziness is another

Janice Porter: 00:27:01

person's rest and relaxation. So we can't we can't judge. But

Janice Porter: 00:27:05

also someone who's lazy by definition, a procrastinator, is

Janice Porter: 00:27:09

like, why am I irrationally not doing this? And they get really

Janice Porter: 00:27:12

upset with themselves, and they wake up at eight minutes past

Janice Porter: 00:27:15

three in the morning. Why can't I do this? Why can't I do this?

Janice Porter: 00:27:18

What's wrong with me? That kind of thing. It's always eight

Janice Porter: 00:27:20

minutes past three, by the way, but someone who's lazy, they

Janice Porter: 00:27:25

don't care. They're not interested in doing it in the

Janice Porter: 00:27:28

first place. So we're not, we're not, I'm not addressing that,

Janice Porter: 00:27:31

because that's a personal thing. But procrastination is

Janice Porter: 00:27:34

irrational. Laziness is rational. So the way that we we

Janice Porter: 00:27:38

chunk it down, basically. So for example, it's, it's, it's not

Janice Porter: 00:27:44

always about motivation. It's about a problem with your

Janice Porter: 00:27:47

systems. So So, for example, are not having you're having that.

Janice Porter: 00:27:53

So you have to work out, well, what actually does work for you?

Janice Porter: 00:27:56

Yeah, you need to think about micro deadlines and chunking

Janice Porter: 00:27:59

things down to make things more manageable. I always think in

Janice Porter: 00:28:04

terms of chocolate, chunk, bite size pieces.

Janice Porter: 00:28:07

I love your analogy. So great. That's

Janice Porter: 00:28:10

Robin J. Emdon: right, because we are, because it makes me

Janice Porter: 00:28:12

think, oh yeah, bite size chocolate, yes, yeah, I can

Janice Porter: 00:28:15

understand that, because you got to get rid of the overwhelm.

Janice Porter: 00:28:18

Yes, right. So if you think, right, okay, I this project is,

Janice Porter: 00:28:23

see, when you talk about a project, immediately my mind

Janice Porter: 00:28:26

goes to that can be anything from, I mean, when I started

Janice Porter: 00:28:29

writing my book, I thought about, oh, I can get this done

Janice Porter: 00:28:35

in three months. You know, that was five years ago, because I

Janice Porter: 00:28:41

was overconfident, which is something else that you have to

Janice Porter: 00:28:43

watch out for. There's lack of confidence, which is a

Janice Porter: 00:28:45

procrastinators, man, Troy, but there's also overconfidence,

Janice Porter: 00:28:48

where you miscalculate, but a project. Think of it in terms of

Janice Porter: 00:28:52

like the student, the classic student example of, oh, there's

Janice Porter: 00:28:55

they've given me three months to do an essay. So what do they do?

Janice Porter: 00:28:59

They spend the first day planning out how they're going

Janice Porter: 00:29:01

to spend the next three months. Day one, I'm going to do this.

Janice Porter: 00:29:03

Day two, I'm going to do this. Week one. I'll achieve this

Janice Porter: 00:29:06

weekend off week 12, I've achieved this weekend off. Week

Janice Porter: 00:29:08

three, right? When do they actually start the work? The day

Janice Porter: 00:29:13

before, yeah, the day before. And the reason that happens

Janice Porter: 00:29:17

again and again and again and again and again is because it

Janice Porter: 00:29:20

feel, it felt too far off, too ethereal, too not real. So one

Janice Porter: 00:29:25

of the things that you need to do, whether you have an

Janice Porter: 00:29:27

accountability coach or not, because I the book is about self

Janice Porter: 00:29:30

help, I'm not saying everybody needs an accountability you can

Janice Porter: 00:29:33

do this for yourself, is you need to set yourself more

Janice Porter: 00:29:37

realistic, more immediate goals, a little little hurdles that you

Janice Porter: 00:29:41

want to achieve. Get a jump, not but not get to the not worry

Janice Porter: 00:29:45

about the end destination yet. So with a project, which can be

Janice Porter: 00:29:48

12 months, can be 12 weeks, 12 months, 12 years, you need to

Janice Porter: 00:29:51

think, Well, okay, yeah, but what I need to do by the end of

Janice Porter: 00:29:53

today, what I need to do by the end of the week, like a writer

Janice Porter: 00:29:56

writing a book, will say, Well, I don't, I don't get up. Until I

Janice Porter: 00:30:00

don't go out for the day, until I've written 1000 words, right

Janice Porter: 00:30:05

and and they do that every day, but writers are classic

Janice Porter: 00:30:09

procrastinators. You know, Victor Hugo, who wrote Les

Janice Porter: 00:30:12

Miserables, had himself locked in his room naked for three

Janice Porter: 00:30:15

months with the telling his servants, feed me, but don't

Janice Porter: 00:30:18

give me my clothes until I finished my book, after wasting

Janice Porter: 00:30:21

a year, he lost a year to procrastination and such was

Janice Porter: 00:30:25

understandably rather tinkled with him, kill him in that era.

Janice Porter: 00:30:30

So but the but most writers understand to be but bit more

Janice Porter: 00:30:34

discipline. So you need structure. And the most

Janice Porter: 00:30:37

important thing to remember about procrastination is it's

Janice Porter: 00:30:39

it's emotional. It's all about the emotions, really. Yeah, so

Janice Porter: 00:30:46

if you are getting stressed, that's emotional. And of course,

Janice Porter: 00:30:49

you're going to procrastinate, because procrastination reduces

Janice Porter: 00:30:53

the stress. Like I was talking about emotional eating ice cream

Janice Porter: 00:30:56

is a hat for me. Fantastic. Stress. Beta chocolate, maybe

Janice Porter: 00:31:00

afterwards I feel stressed because I shouldn't have eaten

Janice Porter: 00:31:02

it. Shouldn't have eaten it, but at the time, that's that's the

Janice Porter: 00:31:04

last thing on my mind, right? But equally, so is doing things

Janice Porter: 00:31:09

that are familiar, Doom, scrolling on the phone, chatting

Janice Porter: 00:31:12

to friends on social media, reading social media, watching

Janice Porter: 00:31:15

TV, playing games, go for walks, all the things that we do to

Janice Porter: 00:31:18

distract ourselves are familiar. And as I point out in the book,

Janice Porter: 00:31:22

they meet our human needs in the moment.

Janice Porter: 00:31:26

Okay, so I'm I just want to sideline for a

Janice Porter: 00:31:29

second to something you said earlier, and something that I'm

Janice Porter: 00:31:34

just trying to understand myself, I think a little bit

Janice Porter: 00:31:37

more based on what you've said. So do um, you said we all have

Janice Porter: 00:31:45

dinner and we'll leave the dishes and we'll leave the

Janice Porter: 00:31:47

dishes and we'll leave the dishes. That drives me insane.

Janice Porter: 00:31:51

Okay, I have to get the kitchen cleaned up as soon as possible.

Janice Porter: 00:31:56

Now, when we had kids at home, kids would help, and it became a

Janice Porter: 00:32:00

routine, and you did all that. Now we're sort of, you know, we

Janice Porter: 00:32:04

may even eat dinner in front of the TV, where we would never do

Janice Porter: 00:32:07

that when the kids were here, right? And I, if I cook, my

Janice Porter: 00:32:12

husband cleans up, but he's not in as much of a hurry to clean

Janice Porter: 00:32:16

up as I am. So if the dishes sit there. It's eating at me until

Janice Porter: 00:32:23

it he gets up to do it. Now, is that something that's

Janice Porter: 00:32:27

procrastinating, a procrastination type of thing,

Janice Porter: 00:32:31

like the opposite, or is it just neuroses, you know? Like, do you

Janice Porter: 00:32:36

know what I'm saying? Like, if I there's certain things that I

Janice Porter: 00:32:40

can't procrastinate on, but there's other things that, yes,

Janice Porter: 00:32:44

I can.

Janice Porter: 00:32:45

Robin J. Emdon: Okay, so I use, I use the dishes as an analogy,

Janice Porter: 00:32:49

I know, but you actually described chronic

Janice Porter: 00:32:52

procrastination. Oh, really, all about the dishes. It's about

Janice Porter: 00:32:56

work. In other words, it's the if the dishes don't get washed,

Janice Porter: 00:33:01

it drives you crazy, yeah, but if the work doesn't get done,

Janice Porter: 00:33:06

that means less cash in the bank at the end of the month, less

Janice Porter: 00:33:10

time freedom, possibly impact on your health over time, which is

Janice Porter: 00:33:14

what, how it affected me. So it's it's the damaging, chronic

Janice Porter: 00:33:19

procrastination that we're after the thing about the dishes and

Janice Porter: 00:33:22

your husband and the kids, that's between you and them. I'm

Janice Porter: 00:33:25

not, I'm not a family therapist, but I'm not trying to be

Janice Porter: 00:33:28

flippant about that. I'm simply saying that. But also, I use the

Janice Porter: 00:33:32

analogy of the dishes in another way. In the book, I talk about

Janice Porter: 00:33:35

the fact I'm a trained life coach, okay, so, and I've

Janice Porter: 00:33:39

already mentioned about, you know, having goals and stuff,

Janice Porter: 00:33:41

but actually, instinctively, I've never liked goals. I've

Janice Porter: 00:33:45

never understood I've never haven't either. Yeah, and, and

Janice Porter: 00:33:48

there are very, very, very successful people that have

Janice Porter: 00:33:50

never written down a goal in their entire life, but yet

Janice Porter: 00:33:53

they're very successful. Now I do think, actually that goals

Janice Porter: 00:33:56

have a role, but I think they need to be put in their place.

Janice Porter: 00:33:58

And when I looked at the research, what, what I found out

Janice Porter: 00:34:01

astonished me, and I found out that the researchers realized

Janice Porter: 00:34:06

that the act of setting a goal sets up a feeling of obligation.

Janice Porter: 00:34:10

It does that's that's not rocket science, but what is an

Janice Porter: 00:34:13

obligation, if nothing more than stress? And when we stress, we

Janice Porter: 00:34:18

procrastinate, and so it feels irrational, because why am I

Janice Porter: 00:34:21

procrastinating over this goal that I really want to achieve?

Janice Porter: 00:34:24

So instead, in my book, I talk about, I use goals as a means to

Janice Porter: 00:34:28

an end. I call them milestone goals. But what's the end? Well,

Janice Porter: 00:34:31

the end is about personal life, vision. That's a, that's a

Janice Porter: 00:34:35

that's a term, not a unique term to me. It's, it's, it's a

Janice Porter: 00:34:39

jargon, but it just means, let's say, again, the analogy I use in

Janice Porter: 00:34:43

the book, let's say that you want to be an oncologist, and

Janice Porter: 00:34:47

that's like 15 years into the future. You haven't even started

Janice Porter: 00:34:49

studying to be a doctor yet, and that takes in this in the UK,

Janice Porter: 00:34:52

that takes seven years, I'm sure, in America, spent some

Janice Porter: 00:34:55

time then you specialize in maybe 15 years time you can be

Janice Porter: 00:34:58

an oncologist. Here's the thing. About dishes. If you are sat at

Janice Porter: 00:35:05

home looking at the dirty dishes on the kitchen table and you're

Janice Porter: 00:35:09

procrastinating over them, it might drive you crazy. If it's

Janice Porter: 00:35:12

the kids that have done it, I've got adult kids, and it still

Janice Porter: 00:35:15

drives me crazy. I completely identify with you, but I don't

Janice Porter: 00:35:19

see it as life changing or life impacting, I just see it as

Janice Porter: 00:35:21

annoying. So I don't, I don't have, I don't talk about that in

Janice Porter: 00:35:24

my book. But what if the kitchen island is the area where you

Janice Porter: 00:35:30

study for your degree to be a doctor, and you can't study

Janice Porter: 00:35:35

because the dishes are cluttering up? Yeah, right. Now

Janice Porter: 00:35:39

it might not occur to you that clearing the dishes today will

Janice Porter: 00:35:44

help you. It might be true that it means that you can get a

Janice Porter: 00:35:48

good, better grade on that, on that essay that you've got to

Janice Porter: 00:35:51

write at the end of the by the end of the month that goes

Janice Porter: 00:35:54

towards your doctor's degree. It might not occur to you, but if

Janice Porter: 00:35:58

you have a clear vision in your mind when you wake up in the

Janice Porter: 00:36:01

morning and you carry it through with you all day, and you live

Janice Porter: 00:36:05

it, you breathe it, you feel it, you sense I am an oncologist.

Janice Porter: 00:36:08

Okay, I may not be yet, but I'm gonna be. Yeah, then you look at

Janice Porter: 00:36:12

those dishes, and you won't see a pile of dirty, dirty dishes.

Janice Porter: 00:36:15

You'll see an obstruction to you achieving your ultimate dream.

Janice Porter: 00:36:20

Then they're out of here. Now that's not what's going on with

Janice Porter: 00:36:23

you. I suspect Janice just a bit obsessed with the dishes. So am

Janice Porter: 00:36:26

I? I understand real procrastination is when you

Janice Porter: 00:36:30

realize whatever it is that you're not doing right now, that

Janice Porter: 00:36:35

could you could be doing will impact you achieving your

Janice Porter: 00:36:38

ultimate life vision.

Janice Porter: 00:36:39

You're okay. That's beautiful. That's that's

Janice Porter: 00:36:42

really, really, yeah, that that sums it up in a nutshell,

Janice Porter: 00:36:46

really. And I get it. I see the difference. So I'd like to wrap

Janice Porter: 00:36:52

up by just asking you to maybe give your best piece of advice

Janice Porter: 00:36:59

to us business owners who don't have a system or need to stop

Janice Porter: 00:37:07

this procrastination to move forward, one would be to buy

Janice Porter: 00:37:10

your book. But what is your piece of advice that you would

Janice Porter: 00:37:13

leave with us? Okay?

Janice Porter: 00:37:15

Robin J. Emdon: So Well, okay, as you mentioned, buying my

Janice Porter: 00:37:18

book, I should start by saying, people, I'd love it. If you buy

Janice Porter: 00:37:21

my book, it's available on Amazon as a Kindle and a printed

Janice Porter: 00:37:24

book, but you can have it for free and as an as a as a PDF,

Janice Porter: 00:37:29

and if you go to my dedicated URL, really useful tips.com.

Janice Porter: 00:37:35

That's really as in, yes, I really do mean it. I haven't

Janice Porter: 00:37:38

come to my senses. I am giving it away, useful as in. I hope

Janice Porter: 00:37:40

you find it useful, and it's full of tips.com. Really useful

Janice Porter: 00:37:43

tips. Calm, and you can have it as a free, unabridged PDF. So my

Janice Porter: 00:37:48

top tip is get the book, because there's lots of tips in there.

Janice Porter: 00:37:52

But I would say that the the, the my, my top tip for people in

Janice Porter: 00:37:58

the same position as me is, well, I suppose there's two

Janice Porter: 00:38:01

really. The first is, are you? Are you like me, as in, you

Janice Porter: 00:38:05

didn't really own it that you were a procrastinator? If you're

Janice Porter: 00:38:09

not, you're not, that's fine. But if you, if you find yourself

Janice Porter: 00:38:13

making excuses, doesn't matter what you call it. If you for not

Janice Porter: 00:38:17

working, you may be procrastinating and also, I'm

Janice Porter: 00:38:21

not in the business of helping people become more productive.

Janice Porter: 00:38:24

That's that's a means to an end. The end is, I'm in the business

Janice Porter: 00:38:28

of helping people make more cash, which leads to more time

Janice Porter: 00:38:32

freedom, which means to better health, which means a more work

Janice Porter: 00:38:36

life balance. If you want more of that, then, no, okay, you

Janice Porter: 00:38:40

need to get more productive. And I would say, my, my, my best

Janice Porter: 00:38:44

suggestion is, is, is, be kind to yourself. Understand that

Janice Porter: 00:38:49

that is what may have been going on for you. There isn't a cure,

Janice Porter: 00:38:55

but there is a strategy for dealing with it, and not just

Janice Porter: 00:38:59

me. There's lots of strategies, but get strategic about it. Get

Janice Porter: 00:39:03

acting on it. And if tomorrow you're not sure how to overcome

Janice Porter: 00:39:06

procrastination, just sit down and do 10 minutes of work.

Janice Porter: 00:39:09

That's it. Just say I'll do 10 minutes. And if at the end of 10

Janice Porter: 00:39:13

minutes, you can hack doing another 10 minutes before you

Janice Porter: 00:39:15

put the kettle on or have a coffee, great. Do another 10

Janice Porter: 00:39:17

minutes. That's how I do it. Even now I use pomodoros. That

Janice Porter: 00:39:21

was a technique by Italian guy in the student right in the 80s.

Janice Porter: 00:39:26

I broke my day up. I have 12 problems today, 12 pomodoros,

Janice Porter: 00:39:30

six hours work solid

Janice Porter: 00:39:32

with with fantastic. Yeah. I remember that

Janice Porter: 00:39:35

being one of the techniques that that was talked about when I was

Janice Porter: 00:39:38

working in that field.

Janice Porter: 00:39:39

Robin J. Emdon: But it won't work for everyone? What works

Janice Porter: 00:39:42

for you? Okay,

Janice Porter: 00:39:44

fantastic. So you've given us food for

Janice Porter: 00:39:47

thought. It's not about working harder. It's about really

Janice Porter: 00:39:51

becoming a different person. It's about building systems and

Janice Porter: 00:39:54

that support who we already are by using momentum,

Janice Porter: 00:39:59

accountability. In the power of relationships, we can shift from

Janice Porter: 00:40:02

scattered effort to steady progress, and I think your get

Janice Porter: 00:40:06

results. Ology framework proves that consistent action leads to

Janice Porter: 00:40:11

meaningful results, and that no one has to do it alone,

Janice Porter: 00:40:14

fascinating. And I could talk about this forever because I

Janice Porter: 00:40:18

lived it when I when I was being a person, professional organizer

Janice Porter: 00:40:26

for people, I remember they hired me to do things on a

Janice Porter: 00:40:31

monthly basis that they were procrastinating about every

Janice Porter: 00:40:35

month they never changed their pattern. And I got tired of

Janice Porter: 00:40:39

being the babysitter because they never changed the pattern.

Janice Porter: 00:40:42

So it was another whole subject, but interesting made me think of

Janice Porter: 00:40:46

that. So thank you. Thank you for being here, Robin. Thanks

Janice Porter: 00:40:49

for sharing your wisdom with us from across the pond. I love it

Janice Porter: 00:40:54

and appreciate you. And I'm going to encourage my listeners

Janice Porter: 00:40:59

to get hold of Robin's book, one way or the other, and I will put

Janice Porter: 00:41:03

the links in the in the show notes. And thanks for being here

Janice Porter: 00:41:07

and remember to stay connected and be remembered. You.