Decision Making Tips for Procrastinators

Decision making tips to overcome procrastination

Do you struggle with decision making? Do you also procrastinate a lot?

If that's something you struggle with, I'm sharing some of my top tips that have helped me and others.

Not only is indecision linked with low confidence and uncertainty, but it's also linked to procrastination and procrastinating behaviour.

If you run your own business, or you're working towards goals and find yourself freeing at every decision you need to make, it's time to address what's really going on so that you can get your s*t done with confidence and clarity.

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Procrastination & Decision Making:

If you're someone who procrastinates, the chances are you also struggle with decision making. Mixed together, it can make it very difficult to get anything done.

Avoidance of making a firm decision could mean that you miss out on opportunities that you would have loved, leading to feelings of regret and dissatisfaction.

Have you ever been in a situation where you held off a decision, and instantly felt regret when someone else did the thing?

Delaying decision making can impact all areas of your life; professionally and personally, including your mental wellbeing and confidence. If anxiety also plays a part, the smallest of decision may feel too much, triggering procrastination behaviours (avoidance / delaying).

Decision Paralysis: Decision making paralysis is often experienced by overthinkers or procrastinators, because of the stress of making a decision. It can lead to missed opportunities, a deeper feeling of overwhelm, and ultimately a waste of your time and energy.

Triggers for Indecision & Procrastination:

The triggers for procrastination and the impact on your decision making will be personal to you and your reasons for this behaviour.

Psychological Factors:

Anxiety: If you worry about the outcome, or your ability to do the thing can be enough for you to avoid taking action. It's usually related to lack of confidence in yourself and your abilities.

This difficulty with decision making can be over something relatively trivial – like choosing a flavour of icecream when there are several on offer. Or, bigger decisions that can impact your life / career. For example, not applying for a job because you do not believe you stand a chance, or are worried about what people will think of you.

Perfectionism: Perfectionism can be debilitating. The need for things to be ‘just so', can mean you hold off moving forward with something because you don't believe things are as they should be.

Fear of Failure: A fear of failure is one of the more common triggers for procrastination and indecision. The fear can paralyse you, making it impossible for you to make a decision. If you're focused on what could happen – if things could go wrong, you're less likely to give it a go.

Impact of Procrastination:

Procrastination can have a huge impact on your life and professional development.

Personal Impact:

The impact on you personally can range from missing out on experiencing things, or spending time with friends and loved ones.

You may experience higher stress levels, as well as an increase in mental health issues due to feeling ashamed or guilty for the things you've not achieved.

Lower self confidence can lead to a decrease in self-esteem, which can also increase a feeling of not being ‘good enough'. Being stuck in this cycle can be difficult to escape from, instead reinforcing the urge to procrastinate.

Professional Impact:

Missed opportunities in your career or business growth can become quite significant. You may also become less reliable at completing deadlines, potentially impacting your clients experience, or your employers trust in your ability to do your job well.

If you run your own business, procrastinating on the key tasks can impact your overall growth, as well as your financial stability. It can slow your progress, leading to more missed opportunities and a loss of your creative spark due to feeling disengaged or frustrated.

Decision Making Strategies:

Working from clear goals helps to remove the risk of indecision and decision fatigue. With clarity on the direction you're going, you will feel more confident in making decisions related to your overall goal.

Goals provide you with direction, like a roadmap, making it easier to make decisions relating to next steps. It also removes some of the uncertainty of the unknown.

How to Set Goals:

SMART Goals – SMART Goals are Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound. These help you identify clear objectives, track your progress and are achievable within the timeframe you set.

PACT Goals – PACT Goals are Purposeful, Actionable, Continuous and Trackable. When your goal is meaningful to your long term objectives in your life and career, it helps you to stick to them during those times where you're not feeling as motivated.

Actionable goals that you can track helps you monitor progress and focuses on the steps you need to take.

Break Goals into Smaller Steps:

Once you have your goals set, you want to give yourself the best possible chance of success. If you only keep the big goals front and centre, it can become demotivating, especially on those days where you can't see any tangible progress.

When you break goals into smaller steps, you are simply adding in the finer details to the roadmap you began when setting your goals.

Smaller steps feel much less daunting, and you can see exactly what you need to do each day to work towards the bigger goal. If you're an anxious person, or you struggle with self-doubt, smaller steps removes some of the pressure felt.

It also encourages more celebration of your achievements. Recognising what you have done is always a huge motivation and confidence boost, so celebrating small victories is a great way to reinforce your determination to reach your big goals.

Prioritise Tasks:

Prioritising tasks is another way to help prevent overwhelm or procrastination around decision making. It's the day to day work, the tiny actions that you take each day that will take you closer to your goals.

Knowing what to focus your attention on will help you save time and energy each day. It can be easy to get sucked into certain tasks that are easier, or more fun, so prioritising can help with decision making, especially if you tend to procrastinate with this.

Strategies to Prioritise Tasks:

There are several different ways you can do this, and it will depend on your way of working and personal preferences.

Decision making can impact your ability to prioritise, so choose a method that feels good and commit to using it for a while.

The Eisenhower Matrix – The Eisenhower Matrix is a technique that helps you categorise your tasks into four quadrants based upon their importance and their urgency.

Alternatively, try these:

Strategic To-Do List. Create a task list, and label the tasks in relation to their importance. This is helpful when you have limited time to work on things because you can quickly see what needs your attention first.

Energy-Based Tasks. Pay attention to energy needed to complete tasks. If you have limited time or energy, your prioritisation may be a little different. Not only do you need to consider essential tasks, but you also need to be very mindful of the time and energy needed to complete them.

The 1-3-5 Rule. This involves choosing one big task that needs to be completed that day. It's the most important, and likely to be bigger than any other tasks you have to work on.

Next, identify 3 medium tasks that aren't as demanding as the big one. Once these have been tackled, you will have 5 smaller tasks that you can focus on.

This is useful if you have the time to focus on multiple tasks. but be mindful of the energy output, as well as the time these will likely take. The rule implies that you only move on to the 3 tasks once the big 1 task has been completed and so on.

Read more about different approaches here – Why You Should Plan on a Sunday.

Time Management Tools:

If you work well with apps, there are a few different ones you could try.

Online Calendars – You can schedule your tasks and add reminders inside of your calendar which will help you remove decision making issues each day. I use Google Calendars, and find these reminders helpful.

Sunsama – Sunsama is a brilliant tool designed to help you avoid distractions when you're at your desk working. You can set your weekly objectives, and from there plan your daily activities. It's a great tool that has helped my busy mind enormously!

Trello – Organisation and project management tools like Trello can also be useful. With Trello you can easily move tasks around in the dashboard, which helps you prioritise the relevant tasks each day.

Mindset Tips:

Decision making can be difficult if you're feeling tired, unmotivated, or daunting yourself. It's during these times that the risk of procrastination can be at its highest.

Your plans, and tools discussed above can help you during these moments, but also make some time to work on your mindset as well.

Journaling – Journal your thoughts. Explore any worries you may have, and any limiting beliefs that are making it difficult for you to make decisions and take action.

Positive Affirmations – Positive affirmations can be effective in lifting your mood and boosting your confidence and self-belief. They can also help to encourage action taking Simply repeating the affirmation “Yes I can!”, or “I am capable of achieving my goal today”, can fill you with a sense of empowerment.

It's all about mindset shifting, and once you believe that you can, you're more likely to take the action.

Tools, Resources & Support:

Each post I add my favourite tools and resources, so here are some more just for you!

Anti-Procrastination Worksheets – Visit the Etsy store for this top value anti-procrastination bundle!

Quietly Conquering Membership – Accountability Membership Waitlist. This accountability membership is coming soon! It's focused on less distraction & is something fellow introverts may love! With no community group, you will receive accountability support via email along with monthly coworking opportunities and tools / resources designed to save you time and energy! Sign up to be a BETA member here.

Sunsama – A brilliant task management that is perfect for busy and neurodiverse minds who easily find themselves overwhelmed and distracted. grab a free 2 week trial and free month!

Thought-Shifting Mini Journal – CBT-Based Thought Shifting Activities + mini journal with prompts

Etsy – Are you ready to create your own online store? Etsy is a brilliant shopping platform that's used by millions. Setting up your store is simple, and when you sign up with this link we both get 40 free listings!

Final Thoughts:

Decision making can be difficult for all of us from time to time. But when it's something that is continually holding you back, it's time to look at where the problem may lie.

For procrastinators, decision making issues can go hand in hand, making it even harder to stay on track and motivated.

One of the difficulties I find when I'm in this procrastination and decision making cycle, is the strong urge to not want to do anything at all. This results in wasted time and energy, indecision and frustration.

The strategies discussed here can be useful, but understanding the reason why you're finding it difficult will be key.

Journaling for decision making and procrastination can be very helpful, and revisiting the reason why you're doing it in the first place! I would love to know how you deal with this.

How can you stop procrastinating when it comes to decision making and staying focused on your work?

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Meet Lynsey

Hey there! I'm Lynsey, a coach, counsellor, and mentor for low energy, introverted or low confident female coaches & small business owners. With over 5 years’ experience of running businesses, and over a decade as a tutor and trainer, I've learned the value of effective time management that energises you through working with your energy.

I've lived with chronic illness – ME/CFS since 2011 and since then I re-trained as a counsellor, and achieved a distinction for my MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice; all while running 4 businesses! I want that for you as well & it is possible with the right support and pathway to success.

Improving your mindset, finding acceptance and developing a solution-focused approach to achieving your goals is my passion. Blending mental health support where needed, as well as a supportive space and methods to manage your work more effectively.

If you'd like to know more about working with me, you can email [email protected] or find me on socials (links in the menu)

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