056: Conquering Procrastination with Rita Emmett

Pete Mockaitis
Rita, thanks so much for being here on the “How to Be Awesome at Your Job” podcast.

Rita Emmett
I’m delighted to be with you. We’re talking about one of my favorite topics, and I think it’s one of those things that you joke about, but the consequences are serious, so it’s really a great topic: procrastination.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. I’ve been looking forward to this. It’s funny. We had one appointment, then we moved it, didn’t we? It’s kind of ironic.

Rita Emmett
We did. We procrastinated.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s not because we didn’t want to. There were genuine other commitments and obligations popping up. I think we’re going to have some fun, too. One thing I wanted to hear about just real quick right up front, is prominently on your website, we’ve got you chatting with Katie Couric. Tell me, how does one find themselves in that position? Were you nervous? How did that go for you?

Rita Emmett
I have to tell you. I wrote a little book about procrastination. I thought I’d sell a couple hundred a year. I asked the publisher, “Can we make it a paperback?” He said, “You’ll lose royalties,” and I said, “Yes, but a lot of people can’t afford $30,” so we get this little book, and the little book takes off and it sells 100,000 in the first year.

My publisher, who nobody had ever heard of, Walker and Company, they call me and say, “You’re going to be on the Katie Couric show.” I was moving really fast and really scared.

We go there, and she was marvelous. She chatted with me for about ten minutes beforehand and told me stories of her procrastination as a kid, and I was so scared, my knees were shaking. So I put my hands on my knees to stop them from shaking and she said, “That’s not working. Your hands show more.”

We were sitting at a coffee table, and she was at the head of it and I was sitting there, and she gets up and goes to the end of the coffee table and picks up a big fluffy floral arrangement, put it in front of my knees so nobody could see that I’m shaking. You saw a chair with flowers that you thought were there to be pretty. No, they were hiding my terror.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s a pro! Oh, man.

Rita Emmett
We had a great time, and she said at the end, “Go out and buy this book,” and I think all across America, people saluted and ran out and bought the book. It was a great experience, but scary, yes. A lot of times there’s such a fine line between being scared and being excited, and the other thing I discovered is have you ever noticed after you do something really scary, you feel exhilarated?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes.

Rita Emmett
Yes. I go ahead and I do scary stuff. We’ll talk about this later, but a lot of times, people put off something, they procrastinate, because they’re afraid of something. Afraid of rejection, afraid of failure, so we’ll talk about that in a minute, but yes, I think fear has a lot of control over us.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. Thank you for sharing that story, and that certainly resonates with the excitement slash fear. Let’s talk about this procrastination business. Maybe first I’d like to diagnose the problem, and then hear what can we reasonably hope or dream for in terms of solutions.

I’m thinking back, in episode 32, we chatted with Chris Bailey, who mentioned a little bit of research about procrastination triggers and how we all do it, but I’d love to get your take. Why do we do it, and what can we hope to achieve in terms of not doing it?

Rita Emmett
I think there are a lot of reasons why we do. There’s more than one. One is simply when you’re overwhelmed. Have you ever noticed that when you have so much to do, sometimes you get paralyzed? Feeling overwhelmed can suck the energy out of the marrow of our bones. You walk into a room, you say, “Today I’m going to attack my clutter.” You’ll walk in, you’ll look at it and go, “Well, I think I need a nap.”

That’s one reason, but there’s a lot of reasons. Another reason is perfectionism, Pete. A lot of people, and I’m not indicating that any of your listeners accept mediocrity. I don’t think anybody who listens to your podcast would accept mediocrity. I’m saying we need to recognize that if we have a standard of excellence that’s achievable, a standard of perfection is hardly ever achievable. There’s a fabulous quote by a woman named Karen Ireland where she says, “Waiting to start a project until everything is perfect is like waiting to go on a trip until all the traffic lights are green.”

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it.

Rita Emmett
Yes. I noticed a lot of perfectionism issues in me. One time, I was signing books after giving a talk, and there was a line of people there to get books. A lady says, “My house is always a mess,” and I’m signing a book and I’m looking down and I think, “Yeah, when I was a procrastinator, my house was a mess, too,” but she finished the sentence by saying, “Because I’m a perfectionist.” The guy standing next to her says, “That sounds upside down. I’d think if you were a perfectionist, your house would be perfect.”

She said, “No, no. My mother taught me the right way to clean the house. In the kitchen, you move the table and chairs, you wash the floor, and move it back. Same in the living room. Move everything out, vacuum, move it back.” Then she said, Pete, “If I don’t have the time or the energy to do it perfectly, I don’t do it at all.”

I believe many times, people say, “I want to write a book. I want to go for a college degree. I want to start a business. I want to volunteer for something, but I’m going to wait until I have the time or the energy to do it, perfect.” Sales people often stumble. They know the product. They know their sales goal. Why aren’t they reaching their sales goal? They’re waiting until the time and the energy. They want to learn one more thing because it’s not perfect.

That’s another cause – there’s a lot of causes – and then another cause is our self-talk, negative self-talk. If somebody says to you, Pete, “If you’re going to start an exercise class, you’ll never do it. You’re going to start developing podcasts, they won’t be popular. You’re going to write a book, you’ll never do it.” Sometimes we’ll go, “I didn’t really plan on doing it, but now I’m going to do it because I’m so ticked off at you, I’m going to prove you wrong.”

If it’s our own voice saying, “I don’t think I have what it takes to start a business. I don’t think I have what it takes to really set high sales goals. I don’t think I have what it takes.” That has the power to immobilize us and paralyze us and we don’t move, but once we identify that self-talk, once we give the name, when we say to ourselves, “I’m not going to let fear of rejection keep me from living my life. I’m not going to let fear of failure keep me from trying this,” and we can move on.

There’s a lot of subtle things that cause procrastination. One of them simply is no planning. When I was in high school, they used to say, “If you want something done, give it to the busiest person.” Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever noticed people who they’re going to get rid of all their clutter when they retire, and you talk to them a year later, and they never got around to it? They’ve got all the time in the world, so they’re not getting anything done.

I think sometimes we procrastinate just because we didn’t decide to do it. I’m not a morning person. Do you know what I mean by that? My husband opens his eyes, he gets out of bed, and he chatters. He’s happy. I’m not happy when I get out of bed, and I follow a coffee cup wherever it leads me. I’m useless in the morning. How do I get stuff done? How do I get planned?

At night, I’m at my best, so at the end of the day, I take a post-it, I write the six most important things I have to do the next day. The next morning, I follow my coffee cup in and I say, “Okay, let’s get started.” I have direction then. A lot of people just never do any planning. They don’t set goals. They don’t decide where they want to go.

One big cause of procrastination is not deciding. You hear a lot of people say, “I always wanted to go to Russia. I always wanted to learn to play a guitar. I always wanted to do this, but I never had time.” No. We don’t get time. Nobody’s going to say, “Oh, Pete, here’s a big old bucket of time for you.” We make time for what’s important, and they never decided to start planning to go to Russia. Maybe it will take two years to save up and figure out where you want to go.

They never made the decision to say, “I’m going to learn to play the guitar.” Maybe you can’t start today, but you could track down a guitar teacher or where you’re going to buy a guitar, that type of thing. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes.

Rita Emmett
A lot of things we wish we did. There was a wonderful quote by a guy named Sydney J. Harris, “Regret for the things we did can be tempered over time. It is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” A lot of times, we didn’t do it because we just never decided to.

Pete Mockaitis
That is so true, and I haven’t really ever reflected on that before. That’s getting me going. Thank you. Cool. All right, I’m fired up. Let’s do this.

Rita Emmett
I’m going to throw more quote at you, then.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ll take it.

Rita Emmett
His name is Paolo Coelho. I don’t know a thing about him.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh right, The Alchemist.

Rita Emmett
You know him?

Pete Mockaitis
The book The Alchemist, I know that. Not much more.

Rita Emmett
There you go, okay. “One day you’ll wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Let’s talk about making that happen. If we want to eliminate procrastination, you want to kick it into gear and do it now, what should we keep in mind? What’s the recipe, the prescription, the formula?

Rita Emmett
Okay. My recipe and my formula is I call it take the STING out of feeling overwhelmed, because it seems like everybody today has so much to do, they can’t do it all. “I have so much to do. I have a million things to do. I have so much to do. I don’t know where to get started.” I call it take the STING out of feeling overwhelmed. It’s five steps to a strategy, and the first letter of each step spells STING.

The first part of STING, the S, is select just one thing to do. I’ll ask people, “What are you putting off?” And they go, “Everything.” I’ll say, “Yes, but let’s select one thing.” “But I’m putting off a million things.” It’s hard, and we have to even teach kids how to select just one thing to do. Sometimes they’ll say, “Okay, I’ve selected it. I’m going to get rid of all the clutter in my house.” No, let’s make it little narrower.

When my book first came out, a doctor in Nova Scotia used to write and e-mail every Monday morning telling me his goal for the week and how he did last week. Pete, I never met the man. I don’t know why he did this. I didn’t ask him to do this. Isn’t that funny? One Monday, the goal said, “Clear the papers off my dining room table.” Tuesday morning, there was an e-mail from him. I never got one on a Tuesday. I only got them on Monday. It said, “Revision of yesterday’s goal.” It said, “Clear off the northwest corner of the dining room table.” I think that’s brilliant.

When we talk about select just one thing to do, you don’t have to write a whole book, but select the book and now decide you’re going to outline it, you’re going to do research, how are you going to do that? You want to start a business. Select one area of it.

The T of STING is time it. Set a timer for an hour. A lot of people say, “I don’t need a timer.” Okay, you don’t. You can look at a clock, but the tick tick tick of a timer does create a sense of urgency. A lot of times we say, “I will do this when I have a whole weekend free or a whole evening free or an afternoon free of interruptions.” That’s never going to happen, but most of us can find an hour. Not an hour a day, but an hour a week.

When I started writing my book, I thought, “I will mark on my calender one hour every week that I will work.” I don’t know how many hours it takes to write a book, but even if I cheat, and at the end of the year, I got 48 hours worth of book. I did that for four weeks, and by the fourth week, I was excited, I was enthusiastic. I had begun. After that, I just made time. I never had to mark it. I was able to make time.

I think a lot of us learn that in school. You put something off, you finally get started, and you’re enjoying the project. Many of us don’t procrastinate about the whole job. Many times, we’re just procrastinating about getting started. This is an excellent way. Select something small, time it, just do it for one hour.

The I and the N of STING are the only two rules. I is ignore everything else. Have you ever said to yourself, “I’m going to write that proposal today. Oh, but first, I ought to check and see if I’ve got any e-mails, and then John always sends a text. John wants some information. Okay, I’m going to go research the information. Okay, now I’ve got the information, but I have to make a quick call to Tim to see if this part works.”

At the end of the day, you’ve got 15 things started, nothing finished, and you go, “Well, I was multitasking,” but it’s not multitasking. For that one hour, not forever, not all the time, but for that one hour, ignore everything else. Right now, in our podcast, if somebody called me, I’d ignore it. If somebody texts you, you’re going to ignore it.

Pete Mockaitis
I already ignored them.

Rita Emmett
Me too. I had one, too. While you’re in that hour, ignore anything coming through because they know that you are not available 100% of the time. Sometimes you’re in an important meeting or something, and then you will reply to them later. I have to say, sometimes at the beginning, that is so hard for people to do. I remind them it’s like going to the gym and you don’t feel coordinated and your muscles hurt. In a short time, you’re coordinated, you can do what you need to do, your muscles don’t hurt, so you’re developing a disciplinary muscle. That is ignore everything else. That’s the I of sting.

The N is no breaks. I used to be very good at breaks, Pete. I could take a two hour job and have it last me eight months because I was very good at taking breaks. If I’m dying for my cup of coffee and I didn’t get it, I will wait, and then when the timer stops ticking, then I’ll go get the cup of coffee. I just used to take breaks constantly in the middle of my job.

We’ve got S, T, I, N. Select something to do. Select one small area to do. T, time it for an hour. I, ignore everything else. N, no breaks. Th G of STING is give yourself a reward. It’s worded very carefully. It’s not get a reward. Yes, a trip to Hawaii would be a wonderful reward for clearing the clutter off your desk. That’s not what we’re talking about. What can you give yourself? Little rewards for little things, big rewards for big things.

A lot of people, their reward is something they could have anyway. For me, I come in and I put one hour in. I set up a post-it with six things. I put one hour in something on that post-it, and I’ll allow myself one cup of coffee beforehand. Once the hour is up and I’ve spent an hour on that, maybe I got three things done, maybe I only got part of one thing done, but I did an hour on it, now I can have all the coffee I want.

A lot of times, people say, “How can I get myself to like a job I hate?” You might never be able to, but if you could have a reward at the end of that job you hate. After a while, maybe you’ll stop hating it, and maybe you never will.

I’m going to give you a couple of quick examples. A friend got workout equipment and he said his routine was come home, grab a beer, put his feet up, and watch TV. He said, “I got this workout equipment. I’m going to work out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday when I get home.” I said, “What’s your reward going to be?” He said, “My reward will be a pat on the back.” I said, “That’s not going to get you to give up the beer and TV. It’s got to be something that you really want.”

He called me later and he said, “Two weeks, I worked out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.” I said, “What was your reward?” He said the reward was he wouldn’t let himself sit down, get a beer, turn the TV on, put his feet up until he had worked out. That was his reward, but sometimes it’s going to a concert, going to a museum, chatting with a friend long distance that you haven’t talked to. A lot of people love to read books, but they have so much technical stuff to read that there’s no time, so it’s sitting and reading a western or a mystery guilt-free because you just put in an hour on something. That’s the G, give yourself a reward.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you. That’s a nice rundown, easy to remember, and it makes good sense. I want to dig into a couple of those things with some follow-ups there. On the select phase, you mentioned that that’s tricky for people. They say, “I’ve been procrastinating everything,” but they actually have to zero in on selecting one thing.

Are there any particular criteria or tools or questions you recommend people ask themselves to zero in on selecting something that’s really going to be awesome?

Rita Emmett
That is the joy of it. There is not a rule. Let’s say somebody has a house full of clutter. Maybe they want to start on the living room where most people see it. Maybe they want to start in the kitchen where everybody gathers for a meal. Maybe the decision is to get rid of the clutter in the bedroom because it’s the first thing you see in the morning, the last thing you see at night.

You start where you want to start because you’re changing the habit and you do what you can do to change this habit, and eventually, these disciplinary muscles start to kick in and you’re rolling along and all of a sudden you realize, “I haven’t been procrastinating.”

The STING strategy I gave you works for about 85% of the things we’re putting off. By the way, I was the world’s greatest procrastinator. I converted, and now I’m a recovering procrastinator. I don’t say recovered. I’m recovering because I still have tendencies. People say, “If you have a tendency towards procrastination, what do you do?” I use STING.

What about those things that it doesn’t work for? You’ve tried STING and you can’t get yourself to make it work. We need to discuss another aspect, and that is fear, fears that can cause us to put stuff off. Honestly, I have a whole chapter in my book about fears because there are so many of them. Can we take time, Pete, or do you want me to just rattle off?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, talk feat. Let’s do it.

Rita Emmett
Yes? Okay. I think a lot of times everybody understands fear of failure, but a lot of people don’t understand fear of success, and I think fear of success is insidious and subtle, but I think it’s pervasive and it’s a lot of places that people think, “Oh, if I really succeed in business, I might become rich, and rich people have miserable lives or my friends won’t be my friends anymore,” or, “If I go get that college degree, I’ll be the only one in my family. My family will think I’m snobby or something,” or, “If I take on this job and I succeed, there will be more responsibility, and I have so much responsibility on my shoulders,” or, “If I do this and I do a great job, what if I can never reach that level again? What if I can never do a great job again?”

We could talk for a whole hour, Pete, just about fears, and I don’t want to take up all the time, but we do need to think about if STING isn’t working, to ask yourself, “What is holding me back?” Maybe what’s holding you back, you don’t say fear, but you say, “Well, I might do a good job.” Okay, and what’s wrong with that? “Well, I might create a lot of extra work and then I won’t be a good parent.” Okay, so your fear is that to succeed will take so much time, you won’t have time for your spouse or your kids or whatever is valuable in your life, but we do need to face it because once we identify it, once it has a name, it really loses most of its power.

A fear that is subconscious does have the power to immobilize us, but once we identify it, it loses its power. We say, “Okay, so I’m afraid of success, and I’ve admitted it.” One woman said she was in multilevel marketing and she really felt she could do a great job and she couldn’t get herself to do it, and I said, “Are you afraid of the success itself?”

After we asked a few questions, her husband poured money into his son, her stepson, and he was an adult in his 20s who was not working. Her fear was she’d be earning money that would go to take care of this kid who was lazy and not working. Funny, convoluted fear, but these are funny things that hold us back, and it’s worth looking into journaling, meditating, going for a walk, and just thinking about, “What is keeping me back from the next level of success?” Whatever it is in your mind. “What’s keeping me back from really accelerating our marketing or raising my goals?”

I’ll tell you a quick story. My son has four kids, and he and his wife wanted to go to Ireland, and they realized they were just so afraid. It was just too big and overwhelming. They wouldn’t know where they wanted to go. They asked us if we would care to go with them. We said, “Of course.” They said, “We’re giving ourselves two years.” For two years, they budgeted and they’d say, “No, we’re not having pizza tonight because we’re saving for Ireland.” The kids all got jobs that little kids can do.

However, the top three, the third kid down would turn 13, so three of the kids would be teenagers by the time we went. The kids got to research where we’d go, but whatever you picked, you had to sell the others on. When we did go to Ireland, it was like a dream come true. Instead of being bored, these kids were, “I’m the Newgrange guy. Let me tell you guys about Newgrange. One of the things you might not know.” It was fabulous, but it was scary. For years, they put it off because it was scary, and they couldn’t afford it and they were afraid that the kids would be bored.

Yes, of course, learning to play the guitar or going to Russia, all these things, these crazy things we have on our bucket list, they are scary. You might go to China and you might not understand what’s going on or something, but once you identify the fear, you can start to tackle it. Isn’t that cool?

Pete Mockaitis
That is cool. Yes, indeed, and it makes sense that if there’s something mysterious that’s holding you back above and beyond sheer distraction and busyness, and so it’s good to face it. You can even make an informed decision. It’s like, “If this takes off, it’ll take time away from my family,” and then you could say, “Well, I am unwilling to do that and there’s no other way around it, therefore, I can let that go peacefully,” or you can find a solution, like, “Well, I’ll just have to outsource a couple pieces,” and then either way, you move on.

Rita Emmett
When you say let go peacefully, that’s not procrastinating, then. That’s saying, “I thought I wanted to do this and I didn’t.” Pete, as we talked, could you think of any time in your life that you could identify that fear held you back for a while?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. It’s funny. With the podcast, I think that I had originally imagined launching it probably in November, but it ended up being in April, and part of it was that I didn’t want to make another thing that had a lukewarm response. I wanted to make something fantastic.

Rita Emmett
Powerful, yes, and you did.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Also, I knew that once the train the was moving, that you’ve inherited a kind of responsibility. Folks like and appreciate and expect some consistency. If you’ve followed a show before that releases on Sunday nights or whatever, and then it’s not there, you just go, “Aw, I guess there’s not a new episode this week.” It just makes you kind of sad, and I didn’t want to do that and create an expectation I might not be able to fill.

Yes, there were some fears, and I think it resulted in a few months of delay. Hopefully, those weren’t totally wasted. I did some good research and learned some new things, but yeah, fear was in the equation.

Rita Emmett
You used the fear, though. I don’t want it to be mediocre, so I’m going to research some more. I’m going to prepare more. I’m going to figure out a way that there isn’t this universal sigh across America going, “Aw, he doesn’t have another podcast for me.”

Pete Mockaitis
I would hope they’d be that disappointed. I guess we’ll see.

Rita Emmett
I’m thinking you don’t want the sigh and you want people going, “Wah, wah, wah.”

Pete Mockaitis
I don’t want the sigh, but in this counterfactual world, I would want them to love it so much that it would produce a sigh.

Rita Emmett
Okay. I’ll tell you, when I was a procrastinator, one of the things that I can identify now but not then was I didn’t set goals, I didn’t take risks, I didn’t have dreams. I was in my 20s and I did not have dreams. I felt like whatever life happens, that’s how my life is going to go. I don’t have any planning for it.

I remember, I was 29 at the time, wanting to be a leader for my daughter’s Brownie troop, but thinking, “Oh, I’ll never get stuff done like I should,” and I passed up the opportunity. Luckily, by the time our son was a Cub Scout, I was on my way to feeling at least I might be able to get stuff done, but as a teenager, I never dreamed of going to college or traveling or anything. I thought I’d never fly on a plane. It’s kind of a defeated feeling that people who procrastinate have. You’ll hear it. They’ll say, “I’d love to write a book, but I could never do it.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s heartbreaking.

Rita Emmett
It is. The procrastination can be heartbreaking, and breaking the procrastination habit can be exhilarating. You cannot guarantee this to anyone, but so many people say they get energized. It’s like when you put something off and you’re falling asleep at night and you’re thinking about, “Oh, I still didn’t make that phone call,” or you’re thinking, “I still didn’t do that,” it can be more exhausting than digging a ditch. We do get tired from doing stuff, but we get equally tired, sometimes more tired, from what we’re putting off because it drains us.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I agree.

Rita Emmett
A lot of people, when they break the procrastination habit, report that they feel more energized. They’ve got plans, they’re excited about the plans, that brings enthusiasm, enthusiasm creates energy, they’ve got dreams, they’re pursuing their dreams. It’s pretty cool.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m sold. That’s good stuff. I’m excited to put some of that into action. Tell me, is there anything else you’d like to discuss, Rita, before we shift gears and talk about some of your favorite things?

Rita Emmett
Well, yes, because I think a lot of people believe that their procrastination, that’s their personality trait they were born with, that’s their character flaw. I am this way, and that’s how I am. My message is, it’s simply a habit. Procrastination is simply a habit, not something that makes you a worthless worm and that you are just destined to never get anything done.

I truly believe with these tools, STING and then just talking and thinking about fear. A mom told me they were moving and she could not get her three daughters to start packing up anything, and finally, after attending a seminar of mine, she said to them, “There are fears about moving. I think you guys are not packing your rooms because you’re afraid,” and the girls started talking about there’s a lot of fears, a new school, and you don’t know how kids dress, and a lot of stuff. Without her nagging or anything, all three of them started packing up after that. There was this release once they realized, “I am afraid. I wasn’t able to talk about being afraid. Now, I’m not so afraid anymore.”

I just think that we need to recognize it’s a habit we got into. When I was writing a book for adults to help kids stop procrastinating, I interviewed a ton of adults, over 500, and over and over, they said, “I never was taught a different way.” A lot of us, the way to do it is to, “Wish I could do it. No, I won’t, and so I can’t do it.” You are presenting in this podcast different ways, a strategy and a way of thinking and exploring that can really release people and get them going.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. I’m excited. I think it’s a great toolkit, and I’ll be putting it into practice myself. Now I’d love to get your take on, could you share perhaps a favorite study or piece of research or experiment that you find yourself thinking about or quoting or citing often?

Rita Emmett
Yes. I was very interested in the research on accelerated learning, that when you start to learn principles – when I teach seminars – actually, it’s what you are doing, Pete. If you add humor and stories to a learning process, people not only can take it more, but they’re less defensive, and they’ll say, “Oh, maybe I could do that,” and they retain it more and they’re able to implement more. I thought that was interesting.

Also, there’s been lots of research on the power of storytelling. I love research about how people learn. One of my favorite quotes is by Einstein. He said, “Everyone is a genius, but if a fish is judged by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life feeling stupid,” and I am very aware that a lot of kids do terribly at taking tests in school, so they feel stupid, and you talk to the kid and he starts talking about trains. He is so smart, or insects or sharks or computers. They’re really so smart, but they feel stupid.

I didn’t mean to bring this in as a plug, but last week, I wrote a book called Farkle Shark You Are Not Stupid, based on that quote by Einstein. It’s my very first picture book, and it was published on Kindle last week and it will come out in a print book in a couple of weeks, but I wrote it specifically because over and over, kids will say they feel stupid, but their brain is wired to learn the way we teach in school.

I think all of us adults go through that, too. You’re learning new software and you feel so dumb, but you’re not dumb. You just don’t know this. Anyway, I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent, but I love research about how people learn. I think that’s fascinating.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite habit? Something of yours that you do that has really been game changing in terms of your daily effectiveness.

Rita Emmett
Well, I did mention that little post-it with six things on it every night. I also, to keep focused, every once in a while, I start to feel like I’ve got so many projects going on and I’m a little overwhelmed, so I’ll type them out and I’ll post it above my computer. I can’t work on all those projects all at once. I was writing a book and writing a picture book and developing online courses, so today I’ll just focus on one. That has helped me a lot just to write out what it is that’s overwhelming me.

In fact, at the beginning of my book, The Procrastinator’s Handbook, I tell people to write out 101 things that you’ve been putting off. Maybe you’ll never do them, but write them out, and most people never get to 101. They think they’re putting off over 100 things because they’re so overwhelmed, but they’ll come up with 23, which is a lot, but it’s not 101. Once it’s written out, now they can focus. “Okay, this is important. I think I’ll focus on this. That’s not so important. I can do that next year, and that’s okay, and I won’t be procrastinating. I’m prioritizing.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fascinating right there, just that writing it down, the load, the psychic interpretation you have of, “Ah, there’s so much,” you in fact see, it’s like the emperor has no clothes. The demon is unmasked. It’s not so big after all, 23, not 100.

Rita Emmett
Absolutely. If you talk about habits, one of the others is recognizing so clearly that I am at my best in the afternoon and evening. All of my books were written between ten at night and two in the morning. That’s my best time, but I’m terrible early in the morning. I’ve learned to compensate. I decide ahead of time what to do, and then I use that to give me direction. That’s been one of my best habits.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. How about a particular nugget of something that you speak or write about that gets a lot of retweets or head nods or notes taken, Kindle book highlights going, what’s something that you’d say that people really seem to connect with?

Rita Emmett
Okay, two from the books, I consider these the most popular, not because of a formal survey, but what I get in e-mails, what people comment on. Tell me if you agree to this, Pete. God created company so the home gets cleaned.

Pete Mockaitis
Company?

Rita Emmett
Yes. You invite people over and now you’ve got to clean the house.

Pete Mockaitis
I was thinking of a corporation. I’m with you. Visitors, yes.

Rita Emmett
When my kids were little, I’d be cleaning the house, and their first thing would be, “Who’s coming over?” The other one is if you don’t have enough room for all your stuff, you don’t need more room. You need less stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s a clear distinction.

Rita Emmett
The opening line of the procrastinator’s book says, “Emmett’s Law. The dread of doing a task often uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself.”

Pete Mockaitis
Agreed.

Rita Emmett
Okay, and then from my talks, we talked about fear. In fact, I mentioned it already. It’s important, and that is to have a standard of excellence because excellence is achievable. Perfection is hardly ever achievable. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, absolutely. Got it. What’s the best way to find you if folks want to learn more and discover more of your stuff? Where should they go?

Rita Emmett
Okay. Well, my web site is very cleverly named RitaEmmett.com. A guy asked me what’s clever about that, and I said, “Well, I can remember it.” He said, “Okay.” My e-mail is not Rita Emmett. It’s REmmett412@aol.com. I went back to my old AOL address for a crazy reason. I will get that fixed. My books are all at Amazon book stores. On Facebook, I’m at Facebook.com/RitaEmmett.author.

I have to tell you, I stopped tweeting. I would go and do a time warp. Tweeting, Twitter, creates a time warp. I would swear on a stack of bibles that I just spent ten minutes on Twitter and I’d look at the clock and the clock would insist that I spent an hour and 20 minutes, and I’d argue with the clock, but then it seemed to be right. I don’t tweet anymore, so I stopped it. That’s it.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite challenge or final call to action that you’d leave folks with who are seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

Rita Emmett
Oh, I like that. I like the way you word it. When you’re overwhelmed, which most people are, today, zero in one specific thing you want to work on, and then go spend one hour on it. Make decisions. Decide one specific thing you want to work on and then decide on when you’re going to put an hour in on it, and then honor that hour as if it’s a dentist appointment that if you miss it, you’ve got to pay the dentist.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Rita, this has been so fun. Thanks for sharing these pieces, and good luck to you and all of the folks that you’re reaching and touching and transforming to eliminate the procrastination and liberate that energy.

Rita Emmett
Thank you, Pete. I don’t think we mentioned, my book is called The Procrastinator’s Handbook and the clutter one is called The Clutter Busting Handbook. There’s a few others, but for this particular talk, those are the ones that matter most.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely, we’ll link all of those.

Rita Emmett
Pete, also, I didn’t mention I got a free tip sheet that I send out by e-mail once a month, and it focused on procrastination, clutter, and stress. That’s all. It’s short and snappy, and people can go to my web site, which I cleverly named RitaEmmett.com, and scroll down towards the bottom of the home page and they can sign up there, and it’s free. I don’t give their address out and I don’t spam them. I just send them an e-mail once a month, and they like it.

Pete Mockaitis
Good. Thank you. Certainly, we will link all of those things in the show notes here at AwesomeAtYOurJob.com. That will be out and about, and thanks for everything.

Rita Emmett
Thank you, Pete, and thanks for having me on and not procrastinating about getting this program on.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, my pleasure.

Rita Emmett
Okay, wonderful. My pleasure, too. Thank you.