This week audiobook publisher, award-winning podcast producer, and internationally acclaimed speaker, Tina Dietz, took a timeout to chat with me about her passion for helping authors grow their audiences, why you should produce an audiobook, and the bright future of audio content.(Podcast on The Writer Files, December 4, 2018)
Tina is an entrepreneur and content marketing expert who has been featured on ABC, Inc.com, Huffington Post, and Forbes (to name a few), and her company, StartSomething Creative Business Solutions, helps authors and entrepreneurs expand their audiences with audio content.She is an award-winning podcaster and an expert in leveraging and repurposing content, and her company specializes deeply in audiobook production and publishing for one simple reason …
Tina and her cohorts love to help authors expand their audiences, income, influence, and opportunities.
Audible is offering our listeners a free audiobook with a 30-day trial membership. Just go to audibletrial.com/writerfiles and browse the unmatched selection of audio programs – download a title free and start listening. It’s that easy. Go to audibletrial.com/writerfiles to get started today.
In Part One of this file Tina Dietz and I talk about:
The Renaissance of audiobooks, the fastest growing format in publishing
When authors should start thinking about audiobook production
The importance of reading your book out loud for editing
Tina’s twisty journey from voice acting to helping authors’ tell their own stories with audio
Why audiobooks are more popular than ever
And who can benefit the most from publishing an audiobook today
Audiobook sales will top 3 billion dollars in 2018. We’re going to give you some tips and ideas you can use to promote your audiobook masterpiece!
So you’ve decided to publish an audiobook version of your book – great idea! Audiobook sales will top 3 billion dollars in 2018. BUT, guess what?
That also means you need to (gasp!) market your audiobook. Many authors think of marketing as a big scary thing you have to do in order to avoid failure, but think about your marketing time as time spent getting to know your readers and finding out what interests them.
Whether you’re promoting online, in print, or by word of mouth, there are many different options you can use to help in this process. To help get you started, we’re going to give you some tips and ideas you can use to promote your masterpiece!
Connect with Amazon
After your audiobook has been completed, the first thing you should do is look your book up on Amazon to ensure that the audiobook version is listed on the book’s page. If your audiobook is not listed, contact Amazon to request that the editions get combined. This is particularly helpful because some people exclusively listen to audiobooks, and if they are looking for the book, they will see the audiobook available on the same page in one easy search. Whispersync can also help here, because it synchronizes the Audible audiobook and the Kindle e-book so that you can switch between them with ease. You can go from reading your book in the living room to jumping in the car and listening right where you left off in the story.
Social Media
Promoting your work online and via social media is a must for any author. Based on who your reader is, focus your efforts on using the social media platform that your readers most use. Do you have an author page on Facebook if that’s where your readers are most? If it’s Twitter, use hashtags wisely so that people who are searching for your book or general book genre can identify your project by interest. Facebook also allows you to promote your post by adding a filter to it to enable traffic with the specific interest. Overall, posting on social media sites using videos created to promote your audiobook (with a snippet of your 5 minute retail sample) or quote memes pulled from your audiobook’s content will bring attention and will also be great for your book’s search engine optimization efforts by back linking to your book’s sales pages.
Promote to Audio Listeners via Podcasts
Just as you wouldn’t want to waste time pitching your audiobook to a paperback only crowd, you don’t want to promote your audiobook to them either. You want to focus on the audio listeners and the best place to find them is through podcasts! Podcast audiences are already listening and therefore they’re more likely to also be listening to audiobooks. Listen to some podcasts that would be a good fit for your audiobook and take some notes on the audience, jot down contact info, and contact podcasters about what you could bring to the show as a guest. Special giveaways or an inside view of your creative or writing process are good hooks to get listeners to tune in. You can also use your 5 minute audiobook retail sample in your podcast interview or in the episode’s “show notes” to give listeners a preview-both creating interest and generating traffic back to your audiobook’s sales page.
Be Their Guest
Being featured on someone else’s website as a guest blogger is a great way to get noticed and promote your work. In addition to guest blogs, consider Tweet chats, local radio stations, and YouTube interviews. You can reach out to hosts in the same friendly and value-oriented way that you would to ask to be on a podcast. If your audiobook narrator has a blog, ask them if you can guest blog and then host your narrator on your own blog for an article or interview. The more channels you appear on, the more you get the word out about your work. You can even write a blog that interviews the main character of the story and publish this on sites that engage with your readers and audience. This is a fun way to get attention, and it engages your readers in even more.
Free Audiobook Sample
Giving people an easy, risk-free way to sample your audiobook will peak their interest and have them craving more. When you create your audiobook, you have a “5 minute retail sample” that is featured on your audiobook retail pages so that potential listeners can have a taste of your work. You can use the 5 minute audio clip as a free sample that you can embed on your website in blog posts and on all social media platforms.
Reviews
Just as there are reviewers for standard print books and e-books, there are also reviewers who specialize in audiobook reviews. By using a google search or checking directories you can find publications, websites, bloggers, and many others that you can submit your audiobook for a review. As these reviews start pouring in, use the positives to your advantage. Post or share these reviews on your websites or social media accounts to draw in more attention, and to spread the word. If you use ACX to produce your audiobook, you can email ACX to receive 25 free promo codes that can be used to send your audiobook to potential reviewers in exchange for a review.
Video Book Trailer
Sometimes people make their audiobook trailers too long and it can lose the listener’s interest or make them feel as if they have already learned all there is to know already about the book. You want to keep it edgy and have the audience eager to know more or find out what happens next. Also, keep in mind that most people are always in a hurry and only have but a minute or two to spare, so try to get as much detail as you need squeezed into a video that’s two minutes or less. To make it easy, you can again use the 5 minute retail sample of your audiobook to help create your book trailer. Make sure to feature your trailer on your website, social media sites, and even in your e-mail signature.
There are hundreds of ways authors and narrators can market audiobooks, but it’s important to focus on making a connection with readers. Learn where your readers spend their time the most, and that will help you determine where you should focus on sharing about your work. If you offer valuable content and engagement, you will see the same in return, and remember that listening is the new reading, so promoting your audiobook and doing it well is worth it.
Want help creating & promoting your audiobook? My team and I have the expertise you need to unleash your masterpiece
Too many ideas? Shiny ball syndrome? Ask yourself these questions to evaluate and manage your ideas and find the right actions to take to ensure success
I’m a creative person, as many of you are, and I have always dealt with the problem of having a large number of ideas all the time. I call it a problem because that’s what it was before I really learned how to start wrangling all my thoughts and turning them into productive ideas rather than getting caught in the “shiny ball syndrome” that takes us away from the things we need to be focusing on in order to produce the results that we keep saying we want.
When we’re looking at any idea, we have to bring it outside of ourselves. Examine it like you’re examining a physical object. Look at all the parts: What do you like about it? What about it has you absolutely enamored? What parts of it are causing you to hold onto it? What do you see about it that connects with the things that you’re thinking about doing or that you’re already doing? Will it slide in easily or take you in another direction? Is it a missing-piece-idea that fits in perfectly with what you have going on, or will it come into play later in the plan?
Asking the Right Questions
Ask yourself these questions to evaluate and manage your ideas and find the right actions to take to ensure productivity and a serene and calm approach to your projects:
Will it make a current part of your plan easier?
Will it make something better?
Will it make something faster?
Will it make something more profitable?
Will it make it more enjoyable?
If the answer to any—or all—of those questions is “yes,” put it into your plan. This is why I always recommend having a very flexible, creative, and strategic vision plan so that you can slide pieces in and incorporate them into what you’re already doing without throwing a big wrench into the plan.
If the answer to those questions were all “no,” but it’s a good idea, it might just be a good fit for later in the process. Slide it later into the plan, stop thinking about it right now, and use that as a holding center for your idea. It’s not going anywhere, and you can get to it at the appropriate time in the plan without distracting yourself now.
Putting Things into a GeoSync Folder
If the idea is one that you really don’t want to get rid of, but it doesn’t really fit into anything, you can put it into what I call a GeoSync folder. Think of yourself like a satellite, and you have ideas orbiting all around you. Turn this into a concrete idea, and create a GeoSync folder on your computer, Google Drive, or where ever you store your files. Keep track of your ideas, and review them every couple of months when you review your strategic vision plan. This way, they’re not taking up brain space or creating anxiety, but they’re also not disappearing into the ether that is lost thoughts and ideas.
Capture & Release…of Ideas?
It’s important to start an Idea Capture and Release Program. We all know that ideas don’t always come to us at the most convenient times. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we realize that our best ideas usually don’t come to us when we're sitting behind a desk in an office, but rather when we’re using other parts of our brains and allowing our brains to be a little more free-thinking and creative. Where we get ideas is different for all of us, but the important part is to have a way to capture these ideas and not let them slip away.
This is where habit-building comes in handy. Most of us having our phones with us nearly all the time. Use that to your advantage, and have a spot on your phone—either in your email or a note app—where you have a running list of ideas. Sync this with your GeoSync folder to bring your short-term thoughts of in-the-moment ideas that were captured, and combine them with your long-term stored ideas in GeoSync.
Bill Gates famously said, “I keep my plate full at 60%.” The first time I heard this, it really surprised me because of the amazing enterprises he built. He left 40% of his time for thinking and creative time, reading, or writing. Although these things seem like idle activities on the surface, they are actually the life-blood of creativity and allow your plans and actions to be more streamlined and better aligned with one another. We have a tendency to get really caught up in the hamster wheel of day-to-day life and all the busyness that comes with it, so we will have to be really intentional about scheduling this Think Time into our calendar. When we allow ourselves time to let our brains get into a different mode, we can get a whole new set of ideas that we never would have thought of before.
Need support for your ideas and help bringing them into reality? Some great resources are:
Facebook Group: Online Creators Launchpad
Podcasts: Podcasters Hangout or She Podcasts (for us ladies with big ideas)
Book Groups: Check out the groups that I belong to on Facebook and also check out Florida Writers Association if you’re in Florida
Use Facebook for good, and get involved in the conversation and in-depth discussions on specific topics if you want to take all these big ideas and bring them into reality. Get out there, and StartSomething Creative! I go over all of this and more in this video, and if you watch it, you’ll even find out how I almost ended up being an emu farmer in Montana.
Want some help evaluating and managing your ideas?
In this week’s episode, Mark speaks with Tina Dietz who is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and content marketing expert.(Podcast on Stark Reflections, October 12, 2018)
Prior to the interview, Mark shares a few personal updates that include the launch of his new traditionally published book Macabre Montreal, and how that book launch interfered with attending the NIGHT OF THE WRITING DEAD event in Pittsburgh that same weekend.
The link between writing/expression and entrepreneurship
How writing (particularly in print) can be an enduring format as a tangible legacy
Tina’s introduction into podcasting and audiobook production
Tina’s Forbes article “Do You Sound Like a Leader?” that focuses on the relationship between vocal qualities and how a person is viewed as a leader
Getting used to and comfortable with the sound of one’s own voice
Breathing techniques and facial exercises used for voice or singing voice
Food and drink to avoid when doing voice work (dairy and citrus, for example)
The coaching Tina does helping authors getting ready to do interviews for radio or podcasting
The difference between forms of media like television, radio and podcasting
Trends in the audiobook industry that authors might not be familiar with
The concept that anything you create needs to be an asset and not a burdenThe free download that Tina has on her website that helps demystifies the audiobook process – www.launchyouraudiobook.com
Things to consider when deciding between narrating and producting an audiobook yourself or outsourcing that
How Tina’s clients often “come for the audiobooks and then stay for everything else”
The pre-interview Tina sent to Mark ahead of the podcast which made things so much easier for Mark
In the post-interview reflections, Mark talks about how Tina’s info PDF made his job as an interviewer so much easier and he also shares a link to a WORD document template that authors can download and modify so they have something similar to use for their own podcast or radio interviews.
Tina Dietz is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and content marketing expert who has been featured on media outlets including ABC, Inc.com, Huffington Post, and Forbes. Tina’s podcast, The StartSomething Show, was named by INC magazine as one of the top 35 podcasts for entrepreneurs. Tina’s company, StartSomething Creative Business Solutions, connects leaders, entrepreneurs and experts with larger audiences, resulting in expanded influence and income. Tina divides her time between the US and Costa Rica, where she’s part of a leadership team building a conscious community called Vista Mundo.
The music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
Interested in learning more about audiobooks and howyou can be using audio in your writing career ?
Have you ever wondered what safety has to do with leadership, especially with a vulnerable leader, or being a working professional? The answer is: A lot!
Safety is a concept we learn early on during the most formative years of our childhood. We look to make ourselves feel safe on a daily basis. It is, after all, one of the most basic needs on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and until the need to feel safe has been met, we cannot begin working upward toward the other needs on the list. This leaves us feeling insecure, unfulfilled, and frankly, unhappy.
You’re probably wondering what safety has to do with leadership or being a working professional. The answer is: A lot.
There’s been more and more press recently about being a vulnerable leader, opening ourselves up to connection and authenticity, and how all these things can make us stronger leaders, managers, supervisors, or even just colleagues. And what does it all mean? How can these things make us stronger networkers or speakers?
As professionals, we tend to go through a little bit of a push and pull between wanting to appear professional and be powerful in the moment and still managing to speak to our audience and connect with them. It’s a little bit of a dichotomy, and experiencing this contradiction can make it very difficult to really feel comfortable being vulnerable.
For those of you who don’t know my backstory, I have a background as a therapist, business coach, and voice actor. From my earliest time as a child, I remember creating a lot of safety for myself by anthropomorphizing the entire world around me (and I still do it today). This has brought me to collect and own a large collection of friends and creatures who have brought me great comfort throughout the years and have their own wisdom that can really only be accessed when you speak in their voice.
Have I lost you yet? No? Good. I'm talking about a large group of puppets, the first of which I discovered at a puppet petting zoo that had been set up when I was in graduate school to become a therapist. It was meant for therapists to shop around to use puppets as therapy tools, but what we found there was much deeper. I noticed George, the black-footed ferret, and I started thinking about how much of a crisis of conscience he was probably having being that he is a carnivore, but he’s also cute and fuzzy. I felt a connection with him right away, and I looked around and noticed that my connection to George was causing others to come over and check out the other carnivores like the wolves. People saw my connection with George, and they wanted to feel that connection too. Spontaneously, several other therapists and I started a carnivore support group. And no, I can’t make this stuff up!
You might never be in a situation where you’ll be connecting with a puppet at a puppet petting zoo, but this lesson translates into human connection as well. When people really connect with one another and allow themselves to be vulnerable, they find a common space of humanity. This common space acts as a mirror to other people, making them more comfortable and willing to come forward with their own feelings.
Many of us as children don’t successfully go through the stage in our childhood that Erik Erikson determined as the time when we decide if the world is a safe place or not. This causes them to not trust the world and to feel like it isn’t there for us. I was one of these people, and there are many, many more like us in the world as well. It’s important to look back through our childhood and find those things that made us feel safe as kids. This can trigger a neurological, emotional, and even a physiological response that can help us move past that unsafe space and step into our adult being so we can then take care of the younger parts of ourselves.
Sometimes to cope with our sense of ‘un-safe-ness’ we over-rely on things like food, sexual contact, or other things that may or may not serve us. We even have a tendency to search for connection on social media, but this often leads to us finding things that are very overstimulating and provoking. It does us no favors, especially for those of us who feel emotions very intensely.
As humans, we have a tendency to want to make decisions right away. We want to push forward, do things, change the environment…but if we do this on top of feeling unsafe or insecure, we might be doing things that actually snowball the negative feelings and lack of safety and make it worse.
Listen to yourself, and you’ll be more able to listen to others. Connect with people, look into their eyes, and when you get nervous or feel afraid, take care of the younger part of yourself that doesn’t feel safe. You can have the grown-up part of you take care of the little parts of you. It’s okay, and it’s necessary.
Feeling overwhelmed? Important elements of self-care, including sleep, nutrition, meditation, exercise, and hydration, are always important. In this blog, I offer some CompassionateTogether™ strategies that reduce overpowering thoughts and emotions.
5 Strategies to Practice
1. Trust yourself
Trusting yourself is a practice. Not trusting yourself is bound to bring anxiety and fear, common feelings contributing to being overwhelmed. Trusting yourself because your gut holds your Divine small still voice that is there to guide you.
Lean into your gut and say, “No wonder.” Lean into yourself and say, “I see you. I see me. I accept where I am at this moment and I know all things change.”
2. Breathe out
Holding one's breath is a normal reaction to stress, change, fear, and anxiety. Breathe out! Try it now.
Breathing out very slowly through pursed lips will send a signal to your brain that you are safe and there is no crisis.
During periods of overwhelm, make a point multiple times a day to breathe out slowly with intention.
3. Empty your cup
Emptying your cup is sharing, and this strategy is particularly important during times of change. Share what is overwhelming you: write it down or share with someone.
Finding someone with whom you can share can be a challenge if you do not have a therapist, coach, or spiritual mentor.
One option is to ask a trusted friend or family member to listen for 15 minutes without interruption: set a timer on your phone. After the 15 minutes, switch and do the same for your trusted other.
Another idea is to do what I call “speaking it” meditation: again, set an alarm and for no more than 15 minutes, talk out loud: speak what is going on inside and notice without judgment.
4. No such thing as failure
All of life is practice. When things do not go as planned, breathe and consider what happened as feedback.
Practice trusting that everything is working in your favor.
Stay on your own side with humility, i.e., stay teachable and open without shaming and blaming, and take responsibility for any mistakes.
Breathe out, knowing that when you make a decision, you can always make another one.
Humans are free to choose.
5. Toes up!
Whenever you are in a period of great change or creativity, the challenge is to relax and put your toes up when everything inside says, “Fight!”
Go with the flow. Trust your gut.
Trust your connection to your spiritual core, whatever that may be for you.
All is well, and all shall be well, somehow, some way.
To go with the flow, resist trying to control the tide of change.
When you notice any signs of fear or control, ask yourself if there is any action, however small, that will reduce the anxiety of the moment. If so, do that one thing. If there is no action to take, practice acceptance. Acceptance is often a gift of grace. Meditation can be helpful while we wait for the gift to arrive.
So there you have 5 complementary strategies to practice:
Trust yourself
Breathe out
Empty your cup
No such thing as failure
Toes up!
How do you help your loved ones with this tide of change?
Remember these 5 tips:
What others say is about them
What others feel is about them
What others think is about them
What others do is about them
Be compassionate and love them
Your loved ones’ reactions to what is happening are not about you: their reactions are theirs and are about them.
Practice witnessing the people in your life: what they are saying and doing is information about your loved ones.
Your reactions to what others are saying and doing are about you.
Keep swimming and toes up!
Love and blessings,Sherri
Sherri Williams has been a therapist and coach in private practice in Pittsburgh, PA for the last 14 years, helping hundreds of people make more loving choices for themselves. She has an MSEd in Marriage & Family Therapy, is a Board-Certified Counselor and Coach, and is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Pennsylvania. Prior to being a therapist, she worked as a CPA for Ernst & Young, taught at the University of Pittsburgh, and was an executive in nonprofit administration. She is the CEO of CompassionateTogether LLC, an organization dedicated to helping people be compassionate with themselves and one another by offering online groups, workshops, and certifications for coaches and businesses. Her book, Turtles & Bears: How Couples Can Be Compassionate Together is expected for publication in 2019. To receive monthly strategies for compassion, subscribe to her CompassionateTogether™ Letter. Here are the ways to connect and follow her on social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter.
Sherri Williams MEd LPC BCC– CEO of CompassionateTogether LLC & Owner of TheLovingChoice.com
Ready to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed and create your oasis?
When you turn your book into an audiobook, you do so in the hopes that it will bring in more income. Have you heard about the audible bounty program?
When you set off to turn your book into an audiobook, you do so in the hopes that it will bring in more income from the book you spent so much time and energy writing and publishing. Many authors assume that the only way to make money from publishing an audiobook is through sales, but there’s also another, lesser known way to make money with your audiobook.
ACX is a marketplace for professional narrators, agents, publishers, and rights holders to create audiobooks and distribute them to Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. Just recently, they have announced a new version of their Bounty Referral Program, which will increase payout to its members and provides many member benefits.
What is the Bounty Referral Program, you might ask? It allows those who are selling audiobooks another option for making money off all their hard work. Through the Bounty Referral Program, members can earn up to $75 each time a new Audible listener becomes a member using your referral link, plus any royalties earned from the sale of the audiobook itself.
When an audiobook has been produced on ACX, the rights holder will receive trackable referral links that is unique to each of the audiobooks published. For those who entered into a Royalty Share agreement with a narrator, (as opposed to paying the narrator up front for their services) $50 will go to the creator of the audiobook, and $25 will go to the narrator for each bounty.
When marketing your audiobook, you’ll want to make sure you use your unique ACX tracking URL to bring any listeners straight to the book without any delay. If that user isn’t currently registered on Audible, that $75 bounty will be added right to the audiobook creator’s account. This means it’s important to share with your email list, social media followers, and friends and family. As an audiobook creator, you’ll want to make sure you let everyone know how very magical it can be to listen to a book rather than read it when listening to a story.
Particularly when listening to non-fiction, it can be helpful for listeners to do something at the same time as listening, such as taking notes or even multi-tasking (we all know people who prefer it!). When including your book URL in marketing efforts, you can also include clips of your audio, your retail sample, a book trailer, or a good, old-fashioned book synopsis. Even those who have read your book may be interested in listening to the book to hear it differently.
The ACX Bounty Referral Program not only gives you a chance to bring even more listeners to Audible to listen to each audiobook you publish, but it also will bring you additional income with each new Audible member who comes in with your unique link.
Considering publishing an audiobook on ACX? The Bounty Referral Program might encourage you further. Need help? Our team at StartSomething Creative Business Solutions can take care of the whole production and publishing process for you or help you along the way!
Need help producing and publishing your audiobook?
When Tina Dietz was handed a tape recorded at 2 years old, that was that, she developed a life long love affair with speaking. Today she is a speaker, audio-book publisher, podcast producer, and an internationally acclaimed business coach who has been featured on ABC, Inc.com, Forbes and Huffington Post. Her company, Start Something Creative Business Solutions works with authors, experts and entrepreneurs who want more than just a business and more than a routine life. They want a business oasis.
Summary
Tina discusses being a podcast guest, and the difference between being an average guest, and a good guest. She also talks about showing up to have a real conversation, instead of just to promote something.
She shares the single easiest way to get onto a podcast, and how simple it really is. She also stresses the importance of making sure the shows you appear on are the right fit for you.
Dana and Tina talk about evergreen content, and how it's very beneficial when it comes to sharing and promoting podcast episodes. They also discuss strategic hiring and how it can help immensely, even early on.
Tina gets into the key pieces and takeaways for someone who is looking into being a podcast guest. She gives practical tips, as well as insights to keep in mind as you move into being a guest.
Quotes
“There's being a guest, and then there's being a good guest.”
“People come for the topic, but they stay for the host.”
“It's not all about you, it's about you getting involved with that hosts' community.”
“Every interview you do is a marketing asset.”
“Show up prepared.”
“Having a podcast means that you have a platform to share influence with other people.”
Ah…procrastination…the “P” word that everyone thinks is bad. Let's take a look at some favorite ways to procrastinate, while trying to understand why we do it.
Ah…procrastination…the “P” word that everyone thinks is bad, but let’s be honest with ourselves…we all do it. I’m doing it right now by writing this when I could be doing a list of a million other things. It’s a really strange phenomenon that people tend to put off the things that are most important to them. But WHY do we always seem to do it during our most life-changing moments, when there’s something we REALLY want to be doing that could be a path-to-greatness, amazing thing to do? And why do we procrastinate with things we don’t even really want to be doing (like laundry) in place of the awesome ones?
I don’t know the scientific answers to these questions, but I do know my own experiences. I always find myself about to sit down to do something life-changing, and then I think to myself, “Oh, maybe I should just get the dishes done first” or “I should really do my makeup for the webinar I’m doing this afternoon. It’ll just take a minute” or even worse, “I think there’s some laundry that needs to be put away” (the problem here is that there’s ALWAYS laundry that needs to be put away).
Sometimes we WANT to procrastinate, because when you plan everything out and take it slow and calmly, there’s no rush at the end that gives you adrenaline as you race your way to the finish line. Some of us work best in that state of mind, so we actually procrastinate just to get there because it can be kind of a let-down without the excitement at the end.
Some of my absolute favorite ways to procrastinate are folding laundry, email (which can be productive or a big time-waster), and writing blogs like this one. I also always find myself saying, “Well, I was going to make a Facebook Live video later, but maybe I’ll just do one right now,” which isn’t always a bad thing for me because I’m an extrovert, and I thrive off of interacting with my viewers. I’m motivated by it. So, even though I’m procrastinating, it’s productive procrastination.
Productive Procrastination
When I was in grad school, I got into trouble (as I so often did when I was working for someone else) for having individual tutoring sessions with students where I taught them how to procrastinate effectively. Resisting the urge to procrastinate actually does you no good because it causes more stress, which in turn causes the brain to shut down, so you’re just not as effective. The trick is to make sure your calendar is blocked off a full day ahead of time. Acknowledge that you’re probably going to wait until the last second to get it done, but maybe you don’t have to lose sleep to accomplish that. Instead, maybe you can strategically plan your calendar by building in twice as much time as you think you’re going to need so you’re not rushing up against other deadlines (like sleep).
Another trick is to understand that sometimes you just won’t get as much sleep as you really should. Although sleep and self-care are absolutely the best things you can do to help yourself be MORE productive, sometimes you have to get creative with how you’ll get your brain to be fully functioning. One of these ways is to set a number of hours you are going to sleep, sleep that number of hours (no more, no less) during the same hours every night. Then, ideally, during the day, block off 20-30 minutes at the same time every single day for a meditation session or power nap. Keeping your body on a strict schedule like this allows your brain to adjust to routine and operate at full capacity.
If you are a big procrastinator or have “Happy Puppy Syndrome” like me, you tend to wag yourself out and get exhausted because you’ve put TOO much energy into something too quickly. Give yourself 2-3 big priorities each day, and focus on those 2-3 things as your rock for the day. Those are your main points of focus, and everything else just falls in around them.
So, what are your favorite ways to procrastinate? And what are you up to this week? Give yourself 2-3 main priorities each day, and even if it takes you the whole day to do it, that’s okay! Procrastinate away, but do it effectively so you’re not hurting yourself (or your work) in the process.
Want some help figuring out how you can set up some ways to Productive Procrastinate?
