Why You Procrastinate Important Things (And How AI Can Help)

You have that one important thing on your list that you never get to.

The thing you know will help you achieve a goal you care about, or help someone you care about achieve their goals. But it just keeps getting pushed back. 

Maybe it's an initiative you need to get off the ground, or a strategic plan you need to update, or maybe you're trying to figure out what to do with AI other than use it like a search engine (which is why you're reading this article in the first place). 

Whatever it is, it's beefy, and it keeps getting procrastinated.

It's not because you're lazy. It's not because you don't know how to do the task. It's because that thing is a massive undefined blob. Your brain knows it's going to take a lot of work, isn't sure what to do next, and looks at it and says, "No thanks. Not today."

The good news is this is easily solved, and more so than ever thanks to our new AI superpowers. 

Let's first look at what your brain wants, then make it ridiculously easy to give it exactly that.

Your Brain Wants to Take Action & See a Result

Your brain is wired to make things happen. It wants to take action, and see a result. It thrives on progress. At a very base level, it wants to know the calories it's burning or worth it. 

Your brain rewards progress and results with dopamine. Your brain knows this will help you thrive, and wants you to keep going in this direction. When it's unsure you're making progress or getting results, it withholds dopamine out of protection. It wants you to redirect your calories to something worth your time. 

Your brain's wiring here creates two specific problems for you when it comes to your big undefined blobs on your to-do list:

1. Undefined Blobs Are Stingy with Dopamine - The first problem with the big undefined blob on your list it appears unwieldy to your brain. It's not exactly sure where to start, and it's unsure how to take action, see a result and feel it's making progress. This means no dopamine, at least not anytime soon. 
2. Your Inboxes Reward Dopamine Easily - The second problem is your brain has been hardwired to get dopamine other places: your email inbox, your voicemail, and your messaging apps. Each is full of other people's priorities making requests of you, and each has an unread count that you know how to make go down. Now spending time driving down your unread counts may have no correlation to the value you actually need to create in your role, but it does appear to your brain as progress, and it's a way to get dopamine quickly. 

You're not going to change your brain's chemistry, so the only solution is to change the big undefined blobs into something your brain can work with. 

Big Undefined Blobs Are Simply a Series of Tasks

More than likely, this isn't the first big undefined blob of your career. You've made them happen in the past, likely when they caught on fire and you had no other choice. 

If you reflect on how you completed the work for one of those big undefined blobs, you'll find that actually did so via a series of steps, one after another. The challenge you experienced is you couldn't see those steps on the front end, but they are obvious in arrears. 

Here in lies the solution: every big undefined blob in your life will be accomplished as a series of steps. Steps that will allow your brain to take action, see a result, and feel like it's making progress. 

Your job then is to manufacture the big undefined blobs on your to-do list down to manageable next steps. Tasks you can start and finish in one sitting (max 2 hours), with a clear definition of done, allowing your brain to see a clear path to take action, see a result, and feel like it's making progress. 

More specifically, you want the first step to be as easy as possible to create momentum towards that task. 

Great news: AI is BRILLIANT at doing this breakdown, and is the easiest first step you can possibly take to get started. Let me show you.

First Ask AI to Break Down Undefined Blobs to Manageable Next Steps

For any big undefined blob on your list, the easiest first step you can take is to get help from the AI of your choice, using the following prompt (Be sure to update your undefined blob, your role, and a description of your company or team for the AI's context). 

"I need to do [UNDEFINED BLOB]. I'm a [YOUR ROLE] at [TYPE OF COMPANY/TEAM]. Break this down into a step-by-step action plan where no single step takes more than 2 hours. For each step, give me: (1) a clear description of what 'done' looks like, (2) an estimated time to complete, and (3) any dependencies (what needs to happen before this step can start.). Please ask me questions to clarify what needs to happen."

It's that simple. In the next 15 minutes, you'll have a realistic plan with clear next steps to help you take action, see a result and feel like you're making progress (and get that dopamine reward in the process). 

This is AI 201, and most people stop here and pat themselves on the back.

Don't stop here. Do this next. 

Next Ask AI What Steps It Can Do For You

Here's where this goes next level. Once you have your step-by-step action plan with manageable next steps, ask the AI what it can do for you, using this prompt:

"For each step, tell me: Can you do this for me, or does it require me to do it? If you can do it, just do it. If you can do most of it but need my input, tell me exactly what you need from me and how long my part will take. If it's something only I can do, tell me why."

Not only are you about to make progress on that important thing that's been on your list forever, you're about to fast forward your way through with AI's help.

Here's what's critical: you have to treat AI just like a team member you are delegating to. Time Boss has covered this in another article on delegation (Why You Don’t Delegate (And What to Do About it), but here's the big idea: treat AI like a team member, inspect what you expect, give it feedback, and allow it to get better over time.   

Take a step back and look at what just happened: that big undefined blob is a blob no more. It's a step-by-step plan with manageable next steps, of which many AI might be handling for you.

Your brain finally has what it's been looking for: a clear path to take action, see a result, and feel like it's making progress.

There's just one question remaining: how do you make time for the steps that are yours?

What To Do With The Steps Only You Can Do

You've broken down that big undefined blob to clear next steps. AI is making a bunch of the next steps happen on your behalf. All that's left is the next steps for you to take, but you already feel like you don't have time. How can you make this work happen? 

This is where the Time Boss Framework comes in. Time Boss is a simple, repeatable way to create a realistic plan you can run each week, right-sized to your capacity, aligned to your goals and values. It deals with both the priorities you have time for, and the important items that don't fit. It plans for urgent and important interruptions that are going to crash into your day. It helps you get the progress you want, from a place of peace and not stress. If you're curious to learn more, check out the free 75 minute Masterclass, It will show you the entire framework from start to finish. If you're a self-implementor, you can get started today. 

If you're the type of person that knows you need support to implement something like this, schedule a 60-minute meeting with our team. We'll introduce you to the Time Boss Framework, talk about your unique situation and see what might be the right next step to help you or your team find your Highest Sustainable Pace™.