Why Your Planner Can't Save You - Overcome Procrastination Edition Part 3
Before the planner and bullet journaling communities come for me, let me start by saying I’m one of you! I won’t be advising anyone to stop planning and having fun with the process. And if you want to make art in your writing planner, I’m here for it. I just bought some moon stamps for mine and I can’t wait to try them out.
Planning is what takes a dream and makes it a goal with actionable steps that you can use to track and evaluate your progress.
Planning can break down a complicated “pie in the sky” kind of idea into something that looks and FEELS more real or down-to-earth. And making an idea seem more likely to happen can actually be a huge part of feeling more confident, which can lead to taking more action.
So I would never say your planner is a waste of time. But if you’ve gone all in on planner culture, bought different systems, pretty pens, colorful stickers, washi tape, and hand-made stamps; if you’ve been setting yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly goals; and if you’re ashamed or reluctant to admit that you’re not showing up as you’d like to be, it’s time to be honest with yourself.
if your planner was going to save you from procrastination, it would have by now.
The truth is the root causes of procrastination are often more complicated than bad habits, time management, and willpower. Overcoming procrastination involves neuroscience and the complex thoughts, emotions, and beliefs that cause each of us to take action or not take action. And this feels hard to take on because most of it is subconscious, meaning we’re not really aware of it in the moment when we need to act. (And sometimes we’re not even aware at all!)
So any long-term solution to chronic procrastination needs to involve nervous system regulation as well as working with how our hidden thoughts, emotions, and beliefs lead to action or inaction.
Your planner simply can’t help you with all of that.
In most cases, you’re going to need a good therapist, coach, or self-help material to help you through the self-discovery part and to teach you the tools to regulate your nervous system. There is no overnight solution, and that’s hard to swallow. But if you’re willing to work on it, once you understand why you procrastinate in one area of your life, it will likely be a lot easier to handle in other areas.
If you’re reading this blog series on overcoming procrastination, that’s a sign you’re ready to start learning more. And if you’re a planner, I think it’s good for you to know why the temptation to plan your way out of procrastination is SO strong.
Working on your planner is fun…and safe
Dopamine anyone? For certain people, planning itself can be the perfect procrastination outlet. Some of us find it soothing or fun to plan. Combine that with the pleasure of crafting, doodling, coloring, art journaling, making charts, peeling stickers and placing them just so… this can be very satisfying as a creative hobby on its own. And unlike the writing career you’re planning for, there is no major risk to your ego. It’s not like you have to show your plan to anyone and get critiqued, get rejected, get discouraged. It’s safe. And sometimes we need to feel safe.
Planning feels “productive” When we’re not being productive
Since planning is a necessary part of reaching our goals, we get to tell ourselves that time spent planning is time spent wisely. We may also get a charge out of sharing our goals and what we’re working on with other writers or with friends and family when they ask how our writing is going. It gives us the feeling that we’re doing something, making progress, even when we’re not. We just have to keep an eye on how much time and energy we’re spending making plans to write (or talking about our plans to write) versus how much time and energy we’re spending actually writing. (Substitute writing related activities as needed: marketing, editing, tending our social media.) We always know when the balance is off in real time, and while it doesn’t matter what other people think about our productivity, what we think and feel about it matters. When we’re not being honest with ourselves, it’s our relationship with ourselves that takes the hit.
Spending time with our dreams feels POWERFUL (when we don’t)
This is a big one. I have clients show up to their first zoom session with their planner in hand. They want to dive straight into strategic planning mode and I get it. It feels more POWERFUL to dream big about their future as an author and make plans for those dreams than it does to admit that deep down they feel stuck or afraid to take action. Most of us don’t want to feel vulnerable, especially with strangers. And the truth is that Desire (the level of empowerment where dreams are born) does resonate higher on the Map of Empowerment than Fear or Apathy. But without Fear and Apathy, you can’t sense the fine line between believing in yourself and future faking yourself. If Fear is the obstacle and the obstacle is path, then Fear is not just normal, it’s necessary. You just have to learn to navigate it when it shows up in your way. You can’t learn to navigate Fear if we skip over it in our early sessions. That would be spiritual bypass, and that’s why when I coach a new writer, we start at the bottom of the Map of Empowerment and work our way up to Desire. When you have a firm foundation beneath your Desire, your belief in yourself is unshakable. (And your planner mysteriously works. Unless there’s a cat on your keyboard.)
So don’t throw your planner away, but put it in perspective. A meticulously organized planner is not the key to overcoming procrastination. It’s just a tool and a roadmap. Your empowerment is the key to using it right.
In the next article in this overcoming procrastination series, I’ll be discussing WHY WILLPOWER CAN’T SAVE YOU for all of you who prefer to white-knuckle this stuff. And right after that, we’ll start to get into what DOES work because this is just plain depressing, isn’t it?
If you missed the rest of the series, you can find them here: