How To Overcome Procrastination - Petr Ludwig - #197

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Oh, hello, people in Podcastland. Welcome back. I have returned in one piece from Ibiza, which was a very, very unique experience during the lockdown. Some of you that follow me on Instagram may have seen that mask wearing is mandatory on the street at the moment in 35 degree heat in the Balearic Islands of spain, which was a very different way to experience Ibiza, but I'm back feeling very refreshed, which is lovely, beautiful change of scenery to get myself out there. So yeah, looking forward to getting stuck back into some more amazing episodes. Other than that, I've got a lot of my time dedicated to the Modern Wisdom Academy right now. That is still maybe a month away, maybe a little bit longer, but it is consuming every waking moment of my time and I just can't wait to get it out. It is by far the coolest thing that I've ever worked on. So with that little bait dangling in front of you, let's get on to today's guest. Petr Ludwig is the CEO of procrastination.com and has given keynote speeches around the world talking about procrastination. It is the bane of many a would be productive person's life. The reason that you're looking at your phone when you know that you need to be completing that important email for work. So today expect to learn how to train your willpower, why finding meaning is a productivity tool, the relationship between failure, self-forgiveness and high achievement, how to take an entire month off per year while becoming more productive and much more. This is a really cool conversation, tons and tons to take away lots of strategies that hopefully you'll be able to apply in an hour's time. You know, one hour from now, you're going to be totally different person when it comes to the world of procrastination. But for now, it's time for the wise and wonderful Petr Ludwig.
Procrastination, the curse of everyone's productivity. You're gonna guide us through the murky waters that are procrastination today, right?

**Petr Ludwig** (2:14)
Of course I will.

**Chris Williamson** (2:15)
I love it. So let's get into it. What is procrastination? Define it for us.

**Petr Ludwig** (2:20)
Wow, is this situation when you know what to do, but you are doing something very different. So basically, you know that you want to write a new book and you are spending an endless amount of time on social media, or you know that you have 10 e-mails that are very important, but you are answering to those that are unimportant. So basically procrastination is a situation when you know what to do, but you are failing in doing that.

**Chris Williamson** (2:51)
Not fulfilling the things that you say that you're going to do is such a huge hole, I think. And it can quite easily become an existential crisis for a lot of people, right? Because if you don't have faith in your own word, in the promises that you say you're going to keep to yourself, the next time you say you're going to do something, you have less faith in the fact that you're going to do it.

**Petr Ludwig** (3:13)
Exactly. And the main idea about procrastination is that procrastination is not a time management problem, but it's emotional management problem. So basically, the more you fail, the more you have negative emotions. And then the more you fail in the future. So it's like a feedback loop that reinforces itself. So the more you procrastinate, the more you procrastinate. That's why it's so dangerous. And I think that it's a main topic for 21st century. Basically, everyone is procrastinating. And we see that it's much worse than it was like 10 years ago because we have social media, we are overwhelmed at work by so many e-mails priorities. So I really believe that to know how to fight procrastination is a key skill for not just to have a successful life, but to have like happy life and calm life and not to be crazy.

**Chris Williamson** (4:12)
I love it, man. Where do we start then? We want to not procrastinate. We want to be able to do the things we say that we are going to do to ourselves. Where do we begin looking at procrastination?

**Petr Ludwig** (4:24)
Yeah, in my book, I have like three chapters. And the first chapter is about motivation, how to find long-term intrinsic motivation. And still I believe that this first chapter is the key to understand why we procrastinate. Because if we have right motivation, if we truly believe in what we are doing, if we see meaning in that, then it's much easier to push ourselves. The second chapter is about willpower. But willpower is just a little helper, but it's not the key for procrastination. Because if you have strong willpower and you are pushing yourself to things that are meaningless to you, then at the end you don't feel good. So first motivation and then willpower. I know a lot of people that they have strong willpowers and they are working on projects, they don't procrastinate, but they are working on projects that are not meaningful to them. So strong willpower can backfire.