[00:01:09] – Frankie
Hello, you’re listening to the Doing It For The Kids podcast, where we swear a bit too much and talk a bit too fast about freelance life with kids in the mix. My name’s Frankie and this is Steve.

[00:01:20] – Steve
Hello. Yes! Each week we take a question from the Doing It For The Kids community, do our best to answer it, but of course we also take your comments from the previous week’s question. Read those out as well.

So last week’s question was…

[00:01:35] – Frankie
How to deal with the overwhelm. The omnipresent overwhelm.

[00:01:38] – Steve
Oh, yes, it was Beth, wasn’t it? Well, Jane got in touch. Jane Button. Hey, Jane.

Jane says,

“Yes to writing it down. I have two teenagers, two baby freelance businesses and I’ve been studying part-time as well. I regularly end up holding all the things in my head at once and feeling completely overwhelmed. I’ve started using a bullet journal as a brain dump for my main business. It’s amazing how just writing stuff down, especially ideas and plans for the future, frees up space in my head to deal with the here and now more effectively.”

Yes. But bullet journal? I’ve never tried the bullet journal thing.

[00:02:13] – Frankie
Neither have I. I feel like I’m overwhelmed by the information around bullet journals to get into it? It’s a whole other process, isn’t it?

[00:02:20] – Steve
Yeah, yeah yeah. But if you’re intrigued by what that is, there’s loads of videos and blog posts online about bullet journaling techniques if you want to give that a go.

[00:02:29] – Frankie
Yeah, a lot of chat in the community as well.

Hannah Abbott says,

“I am the worst for letting things reach overwhelm boiling point. But recently, I realised that a lot of the stuff that sends me over the edge is day to day stuff that definitely doesn’t need to be done by me. I’ve started passing on small but significant things from my list, like the food shop — and importantly all related mental admin e.g. have we got peas in the freezer? etc. (yawn) — to my husband. To be fair, he’s offered to do it before, but I’ve resisted. He has a tendency to go nuts in the world foods aisle and forget to buy bread. But I reached the point where I just genuinely didn’t care. And it’s been pretty good so far, especially if you like instant Tom Yum soup.

I’ve also made a joint Trello board to brain dump jobs that wear me down e.g. getting quotes for household shit that needs doing that he can just take care of. It’s not changed my life, but it’s helping”

[00:03:21] – Steve
And Ethne Tooby said,

“Well, this couldn’t be more apt. Is it the season? I’ve been suffering massively with overwhelm for the last couple of months, coinciding with the summer holidays and the aftermath, maybe. And this has been my redemption — the kanban board.”

The what? The kanban board. K-A-N-B-A-N.

Ethne continues,

“Someone shared a Guardian article in the Doing It For The Kids community a while ago and I bought the book and drank the Kool Aid. I’m evangelical about it now. Mine is very rough, but the premise is to limit your work in progress and distribute the rest of your tasks accordingly”.

Now, Ethne posted a picture of her Kanban board as well and I would say it’s a bit like a real life Trello board made out of post it notes stuck on the wall.

[00:04:16] – Frankie
That’s exactly my reaction. I was like, this is Trello, but physical right?

[00:04:19] – Steve
Yeah, but that’s quite satisfying. So lots of Post it notes and tape on the wall. Which also makes it look like you’re a CIA investigator and you’re trying to solve a crime. If I were you, Ethne, I would also just put up some pictures of some dodgy looking people so that your neighbors are convinced that you’re some sort of rogue PI.

[00:07:24] – Frankie
This week’s question comes from Barney Harsent, who’s a copywriter. I would give you his website, I asked him for his website and he said, “I’m currently working to an A Team kind of model of publicity. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire this bloke I know — Barney.”

[00:07:39] – Steve
So he doesn’t have one. Wow, he must be good.

[00:07:45] – Frankie
Well, here’s the letter he’s written. You can be the judge of that.

He says,

“Dear Frankie and Steve. My name’s Barney.”

[00:07:51] – Steve
Hi, Barney.

[00:07:51] – Frankie
“I’m a middle aged copywriter. So far, so good. Apart from the writing copy bit. Not all of it, of course. The unpaid jobs, favours for friends and surprisingly successful and lengthy replies to people I’ve only just met on social media, I can manage. Increasingly, however, I find it more difficult to concentrate on the paid work.

What tips do you have to avoid procrastination? I mean, honestly, even this note is longer than it needs to be. I’m a lost cause. Sobs.

Thanks in advance for your help, Barney, age 47 and a half.”

[00:08:21] – Steve
Procrastination. I’m amazed we’ve made it to episode 20 without talking about procrastination. We have been putting it off.

Look, it happens to us all, doesn’t it? Isn’t it funny as well, sometimes you have the biggest task, the biggest workload of all, and yet you faff around totally putting it off, and then instead end up working to the last minute. So, actually, that is one of my bits of advice for avoiding procrastination — is to create your own deadline.

And it’s a funny thing, because when you create a fake deadline. Part of your brain knows it’s a fake deadline, but I still think it’s better to just write on that wall or the Trello board or whatever it is you say that it needs to be done by this date and then get it done by that date.

[00:09:06] – Frankie
Yeah. I am definitely the type of freelancer that flourishes under pressure, but that’s not a great way to live life, is it? It’s not great advice in that, you know… just leave it to the last minute, you’ll be fine. But, self imposed deadlines is good. And one of the other things I was going to say was around incentivising yourself. So, like, rewarding yourself?

[00:09:28] – Steve
Yes.

[00:09:28] – Frankie
But you could actually combine that with a self imposed deadline. You could book something to reward yourself on a particular day on the assumption that you have to have done the job by that point, if you see what I mean. So, you could book a haircut or like a trip to the cinema. That way you physically have to be somewhere, because, as you say, if it’s a deadline that’s kind of fake, you’ll just push it anyway, whereas if you’re out of the office the next day doing stuff, you have to get it done!

[00:09:55] – Steve
But in general, I think incentives work for me too, like I’m not allowed to have that tea and cake this afternoon until I’ve done the thing.

[00:10:04] – Frankie
Oh so you do the stick approach rather than the carrot?

[00:10:07] – Steve
No, isn’t that a carrot?

[00:10:09] – Frankie
Well, I suppose, but you’d have the tea and cake anyway, wouldn’t you, Steve? I mean…

[00:10:14] – Steve
No, but it’s… No, that’s kind of like the thing. Is that I’m not allowed to do this unless I’ve done that.

[00:10:21] – Frankie
Right.

[00:10:22] – Steve
It’s that incentive. Either way it works in that I know I have to get this thing done if I’m going to enjoy doing that. I’m not allowed to go to the pub quiz tonight unless I’ve written that script this afternoon sort of thing.

[00:10:35] – Frankie
So the other obvious one is getting rid of the distractions, right?

[00:10:39] – Steve
Yes.

[00:10:39] – Frankie
So, he says he doesn’t have a website but spends the most of his life writing to other people on social media. And from what I’ve seen of Barney, he likes social media. He’s definitely a sociable guy and I’m obviously a similar kind of person, so it’s very easy to get sucked into endless chats. How do you deal with that?

Well, one of the classics — and we’ve talked about this before — is leaving your phone in another room. But that can be a bit disconcerting when you’ve got kids at school or nursery in case they ring.

[00:11:05] – Steve
Yeah, but that’s the thing. So you don’t turn your phone off, but it’s out of your reach.

[00:11:11] – Frankie
Yeah. So I was chatting to somebody the other day who was like, “I don’t leave it in another room anymore, but I will put it on vibrate”. Not for notifications, that’s for just if it rings. And it will be in the room but out of arm’s reach because if it’s on the desk I’m always picking up, always having a look.

[00:11:30] – Steve
Phones are pricks, man. They just want you to pick them up and just look at nothing. Do you find you pick up your phone and you’re just looking at nothing and then you’re like, “Oh, I’ll open Instagram” and then you’re like, “I already saw everyone’s stories when I was procrastinating on this last time”.

Clearly being on social media is a really good thing, especially for you, Barney, if all your work is coming to you via referrals and stuff. But maybe set yourself times. You’re only allowed to do it between 8 and half 8 in the morning for example, and then… I don’t know, 12 and half 12. I’m picking random times. That is your time to be on social media and the rest of the time get that flipping thing out of your face because they are really, really distracting.

[00:12:16] – Frankie
Procrastination.

[00:12:19] – Steve
Yeah, getting rid of distractions definitely works, for sure. And actually, I find sometimes if I’ve got something I really need to do — I get out of the house. Because the house is full of distractions.

[00:12:30] – Frankie
That’s a really good shout.

[00:12:30] – Steve
If you work from home, try going and working in a coffee shop. Which might sound weird because it’s full of distractions, but actually, I find, personally, the white noise of the coffee shop when I’m writing scripts and stuff — I don’t hear it. It’s just white noise. Even kids screaming. If they’re not my kids, I don’t care. I can just crack on and work. And so, even now, when I’m based in a co-workspace, if I’ve really got something I need to get stuck into and I can use my laptop, I might leave here and go and sit in a coffee shop and work.

[00:13:04] – Frankie
It’s the pressure of being seen that makes you up your game. Like even being out and about — you want to look like you’re a professional doing work in the coffee shop, rather than sitting around looking at your phone, sipping on some coffee for 6 hours. It makes you feel more aware of yourself and makes you feel like you want to look like you’re working. Even if you’ve got this narrative in your head that says people are expecting me to do a certain thing, and therefore you just end up doing it.

[00:13:34] – Steve
Yeah. They say ‘eat that frog’. If you’ve got something you really need to do, do that first. And if you’ve got… I think they say if you’ve got two frogs, ‘eat the ugliest one’.

[00:13:48] – Frankie
Nice.

[00:13:51] – Steve
So that you immediately-, because we all know what that is. You’ve got those tasks, you’re putting them off because you really don’t want to do them. Do them the first thing in the morning when in theory you’re most rested and raring to go, because otherwise what happens is you start piddling about thinking, “Oh, I’ll just reconcile my bank statement”.

[00:14:09] – Frankie
Very important job, Steve.

[00:14:11] – Steve
Yeah, but it can definitely wait until the end of the week. No. Get on and do the thing that you were meant to do.

[00:14:17] – Frankie
And also, when you’ve done that — you feel so much more motivated and you go on… Or I do anyway. I go on to be more productive when I’ve done that thing by 9.30. It’s like, “Yes, boom, let’s go!” And then you feel more like you can tick other things off that maybe were more scary half an hour ago, but now you’ve done the really scary thing — they’re easy.

[00:14:35] – Steve
Yes.

[00:14:36] – Frankie
It opens up more stuff. You’re more confident to eat some other frogs.

You could also look at some sort of accountability tool or buddy or something. It doesn’t have to be every day. But once in a while, someone’s messaging you going, “Have you done that thing? Have you eaten the frog this morning, Barney?” Because you and me do that lot. Well, not all the time, but like — we do that often, don’t we? We’ll message each other going, “have you done that thing? I see you haven’t done the thing”.

[00:15:05] – Steve
I have to say when you message me and say, “Have you done that thing?” It does actually make me go and do that thing.

[00:15:10] – Frankie
There you go.

[00:15:11] – Steve
It does work, it definitely works. And even when we met recently and I was like, “Okay, what am I going to get done by this point by the next time we meet?” for example. And I wrote a list of stuff that I was going to get done and actually by the time I got home I’d already started on the list.

[00:15:25] – Frankie
You’d done four of them. Yeah!

[00:15:27] – Steve
Because I was like, “Gan, got this thing and I want to show that I can get the thing done”. So, yeah, actually an accountability partner is a good one. And wasn’t somebody telling us the other day that there is an app where you can sign up for an accountability buddy or something like that?

[00:15:43] – Frankie
Were they? That sounds great.

[00:15:44] – Steve
But actually I spoke to Kirsten Murray, I think her name is, for the Being Freelance podcast once. Now she has an accountability partner, like a collaborator, that she often works with. And even though that person is on the other side of the world, they log in at the same time on their webcams every now and again and they will just work. So they have a chat.

[00:16:07] – Frankie
That’s so weird. I’m not sure I’m into that idea. But if it works for you-,

[00:16:10] – Steve
They have a chat and then they get on with their work.

Yeah, but this is it. As with most things that we have just said — it’s about experimenting and finding what works for you.

[00:16:17] – Frankie
Because I feel like I’d just end up chatting to that person and not doing any work at all. But I guess you have a rule where it’s like — no, no, you have to get on.

[00:16:23] – Steve
Yeah, we have to work now.

[00:16:24] – Frankie
But then I’d just be constantly going, “Barney, Barney, put the phone away.”

[00:16:27] – Steve
Okay.

[00:16:28] – Frankie
“Barney, where you going?”

[00:16:29] – Steve
Barney, I think we have learnt that it shouldn’t be Frankie that you pick.

[00:16:33] – Frankie
Yeah, I’m not the right person for the job. Fair.

[00:16:36] – Steve
So Barney says that it’s the unpaid job favours for friends that distract him.

[00:16:45] – Frankie
I imagine, because he takes them on because they excite him in some way. Like, it’s easy to just want to work on the things that you want to work on all the time.

[00:16:53] – Steve
So maybe you need a proper, an actual to-do-list with three key things that you’ve got to do for your clients and leave the other stuff off of that list. That stuff is on another page or another Trello board or however you organise yourself.

[00:17:06] – Frankie
So you can’t even see it, yeah.

[00:17:07] – Steve
And then only later do you come to the fun things. Or maybe split your day up so that you’re going to start it with all your client work, you’re limiting that time. You’re going to work from 9am until 1pm on client work, and then you’ve got an hour for other stuff before you go and pick up the kids, or however you split your day up.

Well, I hope that helps, but I’m sure other people will have ideas about what they use to beat procrastination, because it’s something that we all suffer from. Procrastination, procrastin-y work as well as you’ve described, where you’re working on other things, but it’s not what you’re meant to be working on, so let us know.