Episode 330: [PROCRASTINATION SERIES] The Surprising Connection Between Clean Rest + Procrasti-Working

Episode 330: [PROCRASTINATION SERIES] The Surprising Connection Between Clean Rest + Procrasti-Working

The more clean rest you get, the less you will procrasti-work. And the less you procrasti-work, the more money you will make in your business. You’ll learn exactly why this is true – and what to do if you feel resistant to clean rest – in this episode.

This episode is for you if you work longer hours or weekends to make up for what you didn’t complete during the week, you love the feeling of checking items off your to-do list but never feel ‘done’, a refund request or a negative review feels like a personal attack or you can’t remember the last time you took a full day off your business.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

  • Where clean rest fits in with Power Planning and when to put it in your calendar
  • Why less clean rest means more procrasti-working
  • What you must remember about clean rest when you’re first getting started

PGSD is opening to new students on 27 April 2022:
The PGSD Process will get you out of your own way in your business and have you making more money more easily. The doors to Perfectionists Getting Shit Done will be opening at 6am New York time on 27 April and closing at 11:59pm New York time on 3 May 2022. To find out more about the program and be the first to know when the doors open, join the waitlist here: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.

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As part 4 in my series on how to become a non-procrastinator, this episode will teach you why you can’t cut your procrasti-working in half without getting clean rest.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project. A podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake, so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the perfectionist getting shit done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.

This episode is the fourth part in a five part series on procrastination. We are specifically talking about procrasti-working, which is when working becomes a form of procrastination. It is the kind of procrastination that most perfectionist entrepreneurs engage in more so than blatant forms of procrastination, like scrolling, and watching Netflix. We tend to busy ourselves with work, and to have that become procrastination.

And so in this series, we’ve talked about a whole lot of things that are going to help you stop procrastinating, I’m going to recap that in a second. But in this episode, we are going to be talking about why it’s impossible to do less procrasti-working without clean rest, why clean rest is such an important part of this equation. And I want to invite you as well into PGSD to do this work with us. At a deeper level, there’s only so much that can be shared on a podcast. And PGSD is really where you’re going to get the coaching and support and practice and implementation that’s going to have you embodying what you intellectually know.

So if you feel like you know a lot about perfectionism, you know a lot about business. But it’s not evident by the way that you’re living your life, then PGSD is going to help you to bridge that gap. So the doors are opening at 6am, New York time on the 27th of April, and closing at 11:59pm New York time on the third of May. So you can go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd, the link will be for you in the show notes to join the waitlist if the doors aren’t yet open, or to sign up. If you’re listening to this when the doors are open, we would love you to join us inside PGSD, which by the way, stands for perfectionist getting shit done.

So let’s talk about some signs, you might have some work to do with clean rest, then we’re going to quickly recap what has been discussed so far in this series, and then dive into why clean rest really matters. Even if I really want you to be listening to this episode. Even if you know, you need to get clean rest. And even if you’re already practicing clean rest. This episode is really going to help you embody being someone who gets clean rest who takes that clean rest seriously, who treats that clean rest and themselves, with respect.

I really think that the way we treat clean rest is a direct reflection on our relationship with ourselves. That’s one of the reasons that I love it. So much of this work that we do with perfectionism comes with working on our relationship that we have with ourselves, building self trust, building self confidence, building our self image, upgrading that to reflect who we really are, because so many of us have forgotten how incredible we are, how skilled, how creative, how impactful and so, your relationship with clean rest is an indicator of your relationship with yourself.

And working on that relationship is going to help your business make more money, be more profitable, help you impact more people, help you have better more connected relationships with people in your business and also in your personal life as well. Help you actually enjoy your business, because you’ll be excited to work on your business. You’ll be inspired, you’ll be hankering to get back to business instead of being this thing that you are just like walking through mud every day.

If you are having that experience clean rest, which is the third step in the PGSD process. Plan properly as a perfectionist, follow through 80% of time, rest without guilt and repeat. That is what’s going to be of sub service to you. So here are some signs you might have some work to do with clean rest.

If you don’t get everything done, you work longer hours. On weekends to make up for it part of this as well as you just prefer to get everything done and then rest, you rest better. When everything’s done, you feel less guilty, you feel accomplished, when you take items off your to do list, but you never feel done. That’s a sign you have some work to do with clean rest, I’m still working on clean rest, by the way. It’s okay to have some work to do on clean rest.

It’s okay to be doing some procrasti-working
. Again, we don’t want to be all or nothing about this, that you have to be this perfect person who always gets a clean rest and who never procrasti-works, and then we’ll be able to achieve our goals. It’s not that at all. But these are just some little signs that continuing to listen to this episode. And joining us inside PGSD if you’re not already in there to help you work on this is going to be beneficial for you.

You can’t remember the last time you took a full day off your business. A refund request, this is a biggie. A refund request, or a bad review feels like a personal attack. It puts you into a shame spiral. And I’ve been there, I have been there. So that is a sign. There’s some clean rest that could help. When people ask how you are, you reply with a statement about how well the business is going. Or you wish that your friends and family would ask you about your business, you resent that when you catch up with them. They aren’t asking you a whole heap of questions about how your business is going and what you’re up to and tell me more about it.

And also your procrasti-working in your business. So if you have related to what I’ve been sharing in this series about under working, overworking and also busy work, then clean rest is going to help with that. So let’s just quickly recap what we’ve talked about so far in this series, because it’s going to help you really see where clean rest fits in why it’s so important. And a lot of us perfectionist entrepreneurs, we just want to leave the rest to everyone else. We will do that later, we will do that once we achieve our goals. Once we’re more successful, then we’ll resume that’s totally okay because we love our businesses. We love what we do. So we don’t really even want to risk anyway.

But it matters. It’s going to help you make more money, get more customers and more clients more easily be more creative. There are so many benefits to getting this clean rest. So in the first episode, the first part I talked about the three types of procrasti-working, busy work, under work, overwork, these all relate to needle movers. You’re either not working on a needle mover when you’re doing busy work when you’re under working, you’re moving on from a needle mover before it’s done. When you’re overworking, you’re spending more time extra time on a needle mover once it’s already complete.

Procrastination including procrasti-working is not a problem. It’s a sign that you have a highly intelligent brain. Zero procrastination. Underline this, highlight this. Zero procrastination is not the goal. We’re focusing on following through 80% of the time that’s the PGSD process. Planning properly as a perfectionist, follow through 80% of the time, rest without guilt and repeat. That’s what we’re focusing on as the process for getting out of our own way including the process for stopping procrasti-working.

Well, not even stopping it completely reducing it. When you notice procrasti-working, you’re going to do the procrastination pick me up once per week. So either when you notice it in the moment, just one time during the week that you notice it or during your weekly review. So in the third part of this series, the previous episode, I go through the three prompts for your procrastination pick me up and exactly how to do that and why it works. And that is what we have discussed so far.

So let’s get into clean rest. So as I mentioned, clean rest resting without guilt. It’s the third step in the PGSD process, which is the process for getting out of your own way in your business. This is the process that you will gain mastery over inside PGSD. So where does clean rest fit in with power planning. So the first step in the PGSD process is planning properly as perfectionist that includes setting your growth goal, power planning, and getting clean rest which power planning is going to help you do.

So when you are doing your Power Hour at the beginning of the week, you will need to be planning in your clean rest. So in that power hour we follow the power hour process and we plan our tasks in a very specific order in our calendar so that we’re not just resting in the leftover time. If you like thinking about saving money, a lot of advice out there about saving money, and it works is that you decide what you want to save. And you put that aside, and then you spend the rest. So we’re kind of doing the same with our power planning is that when you’re deciding how much clean rest we’re going to get, we’re going to give ourselves more clean rest, and we feel comfortable with knowing that as perfectionist, we are going to feel resistant to it.

And knowing that clean rest is so important. In this episode, I’m going to be going more into why. But we are putting that clean rest in our calendar before the needle movers. That’s so important. We do the clean rest first. So then, as you’re going throughout the week, and you make any little tweaks, which is the second step in clean out sorry, in power planning. So there’s your Power Hour, little tweaks and your weekly review. So when you are going throughout your week, focusing on following through 80% of the time, you are focusing on resting without guilt, you’re going to honor that clean rest, as if it’s a business task.

If you have the tendency to prioritize business tasks, we’re instead going to be prioritizing clean rest. If you don’t get something done in the time that you had allotted. Obviously, we’re making little tweaks, there’s nuance and exceptions to this. Accessing your future self. And having a discussion with them is going to help you figure out when to change your plans and when to follow through. But the general recommendation, and of course, there’s many times in PGSD on call is that when we love going into rest time by working, and we like catching up on things we didn’t get done. We instead need to honor the rest and let that thing not be done.

So there’s actually a consequence, instead of prioritizing the business task, and then de prioritizing the clean rest, and wondering why we don’t feel motivated, wondering why a refund request feels like a personal attack. All this is connected to clean rests. Wondering why we procrasti-working again, it all comes back to clean rest. So we want to honor our clean rest, even if that means that things in the business don’t get done. And you want to sit with the discomfort of not having that thing be done. Because that’s going to create the most growth instead of just letting yourself pick up the slack during your rest time.

This is something for me that really helps me to follow through with my plan, is that when I am being really onto myself with my clean rest. So say for example today, I know that after this day of work, I’m having four days off before I work again, and that I’ve planned out all of the things that I need to create for the launch of PGSD. And I have shit to do next week. So if I spend today overthinking, IE, overworking, under working, doing busy work, that’s going to have a real impact on myself, and I know that I’m not going to let myself dip into my clean rest tomorrow, or the next day or the next day or the next day.

Even though I have nothing really planned, I’m probably going to be twiddling my thumbs for some of that time and thinking, I’m human, I still have the thoughts I should be more productive. But I’m not gonna let myself do it. And that gives me so much motivation and courage to do the courageous things that I have in my calendar today. Instead of procrastinating on them, and telling myself, well, I’ll just do that tomorrow, I’ll just do that tomorrow.

We really get in that habit when we’re not getting clean rest. Because there’s no kind of start or end to the workday or start or end to the work week. There might technically be a mundane on a Sunday, and you know, you wake up and you go to sleep. But if you have, every hour of the day is an option to be working, then there’s no urgency to actually do the courageous things. There’s no real reason to stick to your plans. Because you can just make up for it later.

But when you know, now I take my clean rest seriously because that’s where my brain synthesizes the best ideas. That’s where my subconscious gets to work. That’s when I build my identity beyond my business so that I have more courage to show up fully in my business. When we’re serious about that clean rest. Then when it’s time to get shit done, we get shit done. That’s what we do in PGSD, hasn’t were bad and yeah isn’t about perfection, 80% of the time, more often than not following through with our plans, and having compassion for ourselves in the fact we’re human, we’re not a robot, despite what we like to think sometimes about ourselves.

But that really creates such a powerful motivator. And I know that when I’m really onto my clean rest, and I’m honoring that, which means I’m honoring myself, because it’s a reflection of our relationship with ourselves. And then when I’m working, I’m going in there, I’m doing the courageous things that I need to do, I’m doing those needle movers, I’m not letting myself spent a lot of extra time on them, I’m not jumping from task to task, I’m just doing what I know I need to do.

And as I’ve shared throughout this series, and many times on this podcast, I still do procrasti-working, I’m not perfect. And that’s not the goal. We’re not aiming for zero procrastination, but there’s so much less of it, because of the prioritization of clean rest. So it’s really important to be focused on when you are going throughout your week. And maybe something didn’t get done in time, that instead of letting it creep into your clean rest time to move that thing into another work period that you have. So when you’re doing your power planning, it’s great to have some buffer time. So that task may go into your buffer time. Or if there’s no buffer time left, then you might shuffle things around, and then something gets moved into the next week. And then you’re going to pick that up when you are doing your power hour. And you’ll see that task there. And you’ll be able to consider when it needs to get done, or if it’s even a needle mover.

But working on really treating that clean rest as if it’s a commitment that you have to someone else, we tend to take those more seriously than our own relationship with ourselves. We don’t want to let anyone else down. And yet we love letting ourselves down. We’re so practiced in that. And in PGSD, were unlearning that and knowing that it’s okay, that that’s happening. But we are working on reestablishing that relationship with ourselves reconnecting to ourselves.

And by virtue of that we’re able to reconnect with our business and connect with that, and then off away, we need to honor that clean rest. As if it’s more important than the needle movers for your business, it is a needle mover for your business. And it’s a needle mover for your life as well, then in the weekly review. So this is your half hour at the end of the week, where you are going through the prompts that we have for you in PGSD, you’re reflecting on what went on in a non judgmental way.

And part of that you will be looking at clean rest. And seeing any patterns or trends, you might also be looking at previous weeks as well. And noticing, for example, and this is really what has encouraged and motivated me to be very stringent with my clean rest is that at the end of last year, I was really and this is all like it’s so important to be self compassionate, and to not be like oh, I should know better or whatever. And I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to have power planning to help me see this that I was playing around with how am I going to get the work done that I want to and also have time with my daughter and really be able to do both of those things.

And so I was experimenting with working during her nap times, especially if Steve was at work. So when he’s at work, he’ll be like, leave the house at 6am and get back at about 8pm. So I will have her the whole day. Often we’re just chilling around the house or doing that kind of thing. And so I was like, okay, I can do some work during nap time. And I really found that challenging that I wasn’t able to do needle movers. I just found myself doing a lot of procrasti-work, because I was like I might only have 40 minutes and we’re already 10 minutes in and I can’t get into a deep task that I need too. Recording a podcast episode is really challenging, like a lot of things that I do in my business require, especially at this stage, require deep thinking and require more significant amount of time.

So when I experimented with that, and it was for I think a few months I did that I could see in my weekly review, that it wasn’t working for me not to have just full clean rest on a day. And then a day that is a workday and someone else is looking after Lydia and when I was able to after seeing it in many weekly reviews, decided okay, now let’s experiment with having just three work days which my brain definitely tells me it’s not enough especially not to make a million dollars. But I’m testing that anyway.

But to have three work days, and to really put my brain to the test, and really embody what I teach in PGSD to the next level, and use power planning and use my growth goal is to be able to achieve that goal in a way that’s in alignment with my values, in alignment with my lifestyle goals. For the highest good of our clients, all of those things, I’m going to put my brain to the test, and do that in three days. And those days that I have clean rest, they are clean rest, I’m going to talk about this a bit later. But for me, and it’s totally okay, if you want to do this too, you can just say, there’s business time and clean rest time, you don’t have to really get into a whole lot of specifics about all is this clean relative, it’s not business time, but I’m putting the laundry away, and that’s productive. But I kind of find it therapeutic.

And I’m just watching the show, as I do it. Like, as you do your work on clean rest, you can get into those layers in that nuance. But if you wanted to say, hey, there’s business time, and clean rest time, and sometimes during clean rest, I’m doing productive life admin things. And other times during clean rest, I’m just watching a show on Netflix, and I’m not double screen, I’m actually watching the show on Netflix. So that’s up to you. But for me, that’s how I really look at it. And I find it the most helpful that way.

And when I have a lot of clean rest way more than my brain is comfortable with, it really has allowed me to be so present with Lydia and with Steve and with what I’m engaged in on my non work days. And then I am chomping at the bit to work again. Because I miss it. That doesn’t mean I don’t listen to a business podcast or things like that during my clean rest. But I’m not working. And I’m also trusting myself that if I have an inspired idea, during my clean rest time that I can just write that down.

And then when the time comes to work, I’m going to be able to execute, and I don’t have to act on the idea in the moment, because I can trust myself to be able to execute on that idea later. So that’s another element of this. Again, it really is a reflection of our relationship with ourselves. And if we allow ourselves to be in clean rest, and to have these incredible ideas, and to sit on them for a minute and not have to act straight away because of fear that we won’t be able to do what we want to do with them later on.

It’s so powerful. So that is how clean rest fits in with your power planning. It’s really considered in every step of the power planning process. So let’s talk about why clean rest matters as it relates specifically to procrasti-working. So the first thing and I’ve talked about this already, if you’re not planning properly as a perfectionist and taking clean rest, then you’re not going to notice procrasti-working. So I talked about this more in part three, the previous episode. But we want to make sure that you are planning properly. So that you actually have a tool to be able to notice procrastinate, okay, and part of that planning properly, is clean rest.

So for me working those three days, it makes it really obvious when I’m procrasti-working, because I don’t have that many business tasks that I’m working on. And I’m also working from my calendar, I can see when I’m changing those plans. If I’m doing things that aren’t needle movers, I can experience that because I’m not able to make up for that and have like a whole lot of business time and half of it is needle movers and half isn’t. And so the business is still moving forward even though there are a lot of there’s a lot of procrasti-working there that with that time.

And this comes with practicing power planning for a few years now. After really figuring out how to plan in a way that gets my perfectionist mindset on my side and then working that process again and again. So it’s not like you have to get from where you are right now to here this week. But really knowing that the more clean rest you put in, the more limits you put on how much business time you have, that is going to help you notice procrasti-working and get yourself out of it and move your business forward.

And I know that when I was full time working as an accountant, that I had a whole lot of story about how I just needed more time. And then I know as well when I had a baby and I was like oh my goodness, what did I even do with my time before I had a child like, now I feel like I have no time and back then I had so much and it was his same old story of what if I just had more time. I’m really taking ownership of that and saying I’m choosing to work three days per week, I could work more days if I wanted to. And I’m choosing not to, I could work less days if I wanted to. And I’m choosing not to, I’m choosing three days a week, how did I get three days a week, I just made it up, I just picked the number.

And my power planning told me that, that I have been experimenting for years now with how I work best, when I work best. How many hours of needle movers I can do per day about six, when I tend to go into procrasti-working after the six hour mark, I really tend to get myself into those kinds of tasks. So I’ve been able to use power planning to figure out that schedule for myself. It’s such an incredible tool for self discovery. And really, again, connecting with yourself connecting with your business. So that three days a week of working and clean rest on other days, and also having a specific time that I started in my days, that really helps me to catch the procrasti-working and do something about it.

And so that doesn’t mean you need to work three days a week. That’s not, that’s not the moral of the story here. It’s really that having clean rest in your calendar and planning that before you plan your needle movers is going to help you prioritize, is going to help you get out of overwhelm, it’s going to be tempting to have overwhelming thoughts, especially if you’ve been very practiced in them as most perfectionist are overwhelmed often becomes our emotional home, when we’re not feeling overwhelmed. We feel like we’re missing something. And so we subconsciously create this overwhelming create this feeling of being behind.

So that’s designed to be onto yourself about as well. So it’s gonna when you get into power planning, and so I mean three month commitment that you’re going to want to have overwhelming thoughts about it, and power planning is going to help you unlearn that, first of all, by revealing to you that way of thinking and the procrasti-working so that you can do something about it and using tools that we have in PGSD. And using the procrastination pick me up. That is a process for getting out of your own way and for getting more done in less time making more money, enjoying the day to day of your business, being able to celebrate your successes, being able to go to a yoga class in the middle of the day without feeling guilty, if that’s what you want to do.

So that’s all going to be as a result of practicing power planning, practicing clean rest, you don’t have to be perfect at it to be able to experience all of those benefits. So clean rest limits the amount of time you have for procrasti-working. So it’s going to be really frustrating when you are procrasti-working. And you don’t have much time to work on your business. And I think this is why a lot of us want more time because we think oh, if I have more time, then I’ll be able to get to the needle movers, but, we want to just have less time and do the needle movers and then have clean rest.

So it gets frustrating. And with that frustration, we can actually pay attention to it and do something about it. Well, you have a whole lot of time, then that procrasti-working is gonna go unnoticed. Also, procrasti-working is your brain begging for a break. So something I’ve been doing a lot of recently is taking peloton classes. So I got a peloton about a week ago now. And I’m in love with it as I knew I would be because I’ve always loved spinning and fitness and all that kind of thing. And actually, that’s not true.

I have definitely taught myself to love all of that, and to be growth minded about it. And it’s just so interesting, once you’re really embodying that, that it feels like it was always the case when it wasn’t. But anyway, so I have a peloton. And I’ve been doing this spinning classes. And something that I don’t think every instructor does is there’s one who I’ve been doing a lot of her classes, the most I mean, as I said, I’ve only been doing it for a week or so. But I think her name is Leanne Hainsby or something like that. But she does such a good job of it. And it makes me absolutely love her classes.

So she’s so good at saying, here’s what we’ve got to date, we’ve got this effort and that effort. We’re going to spend this many minutes on this and then we’re going to do that and then we’re going to do this. And then as we’re going through it, she said okay, here’s where we are, here’s where we are. And then we get to the halfway point. Okay, here’s what we’ve done. Now, here’s where we’re going, here’s what you’ve got left. And then when it gets the end, okay, here’s what we did today.

And that is so helpful for our brains. I’ll just speak for myself for my brain. But I’ve noticed this as well with coaching, hundreds of PGSDers on this, that when our brains know there’s a break, when they know what the plan is, and that if they just work hard, and I don’t mean overcomplicating, overthinking overworking. When I say working hard, I mean being courageous, being focused, doing the thing we said we would do. When we do that, it’s safe to do that, we’re not going to burn out and run out of energy because a break is coming.

And so in these classes when I’m spinning on my bike and Leanne saying, okay, you know, we’ve just got 30 seconds, and then there’s going to be a break coming up. And then we’re going to do 30 seconds again, you got 10 seconds, so I can really think about, okay, I can really go hard in this 30 seconds, because I know I’ve got ample recovery time. But if I got into that class, and it was the same class, but Leanne didn’t say any of that stuff about, here’s what we’ve got going on, in some of the classes I’ve watched, they kind of give a brief overview, but they’re not really heavy on this. And I’ve noticed that it’s harder to really, like on the peloton, they measure cadence and resistance and that together creates your output and gives you a score, love this kind of thing. Love the leaderboard, all of that.

And so with Leanne classes I have been getting highest scores in terms of my output in the effort that I’m putting in because she is so clearly saying, here’s what’s going on. And so it feels safe for me to really put in a full effort because that rest is coming where as as I was saying, if there was the same class, the same instructor, the same music, everything the same, and they just said, Okay, here we go, we’re going for a ride. And then they’re saying, okay, pedal as fast as you can pedal as fast as you can, and not telling you how much longer for with even if we’re not consciously doing it, subconsciously, we’re like, Okay, I’m going to maybe give it like 60%. And then maybe in about a minute, or maybe even 30 seconds. If she doesn’t say slow down, I’m just going to slow down because I need to.

But if we have that clear guideline for our brain to know, okay, just a little more, and then rest is coming. And then it’s just a little more and then rest has come in, we can get such a better result. And then we feel so accomplished as well, when we’re in that rest, because we had set out specifically what we had planned to do. And then we did that thing. And even if during that class, you need to have a little less resistance than they suggested or any of that you can still feel so accomplished.

Because you were specific about what needs to be done. It wasn’t just Okay, let’s just see how long we can ride for and see how hard we can ride. Oh, and we’re doing that all day every day, except for when you’re sleeping. That’s what we do with our business. When we’re not power planning and planning properly, that we just say, Okay, let’s see how hard you can go. And we’re not going to stop ever. And we wonder why we’re not motivated. We wonder why we’re not having the kind of inspired ideas that others are having, or that we are having those ideas, and we’re not able to implement them.

We just have this notes on our iPhone that are full with business ideas that we haven’t done anything with. That’s because instead of telling our brain with planning properly, and having these really clear plans are okay, you know, we’ve got this effort, and then it’s a break and then this effort, and then it’s a break. That’s how you feel today, I had an effort this morning. And then I had a break and then I have an effort now. And then I have a break, I’m actually doing a peloton class, and then I have an effort. And then that’s it through the day. And then I have four days off.

So I can really pedal hard so to speak, because my brain knows that rest is coming. But and I have years of experience of working without clean rest. So at this point nearly a decade into business. I have spent many years at university, I have a law degree, a finance degree, spent a lot of time being in a mode where it was just this story. I was telling myself, I should be working all day, every day. And if I’m not working, I should feel guilty about it.

Even if I’m at a party, even if I’m just in like hanging out at the end of the day. Even if I haven’t even woken up yet. And I’m still in bed I should feel guilty because I’m not doing more like I’ve been in that. And it really was so challenging to feel excited about the process and the journey like when people talk about enjoy the journey. Clean rest needs to be there for that to happen. Like when you’re enjoying the journey if you think about driving in a car, so you’re going on a road trip, and enjoy the journey.

If you can never get out of the car to stretch your legs, how much you’re going to enjoy that journey, even if it’s the most beautiful scenery, and you have the most amazing music and your best friends and the best snacks on the way. If you don’t get to stretch your legs and if you’re just driving and you have no destination in mind, which a lot is when we don’t have a growth goal. That’s what we’re doing. We’re just like, let’s see how far we can drive and we’re definitely behind. I wouldn’t even know where we’re going but we’re definitely behind. We want to be so clear about that.

So brain can really compartmentalize and can really put in a full effort, which is an important part of releasing your handbrake and getting out of your own way and into that course mindset, when we are able to give our brain a break, and if you’re procrasti-working, that’s your brain saying, “Give me a break”, I can focus on needle movers and get them done when I have plenty of clean rest, but I’m not getting enough of that.

And again, I’ve said it once. I’ll say it again. Zero procrastination isn’t the goal, that is not what we’re aiming for. So if you are still doing a bit of procrasti-working, that’s not like, okay, now I really have to go into my clean rest and whatever. Just keep honoring your clean rest, and keep doing your procrastination pick me up when you need to do them.

But if you are doing a lot of procrasti-working, more than you would like to do if you are following through with your plans less than 80% of time and obviously is what the 80% is not a mathematical equation, it’s more of a sense of vibe, a indicator doesn’t have to be 80%. Exactly. Just in case you are thinking that and had omitted the 80%. We perfectionist sometimes think that way. So if you are doing more procrasti-working, then you would like to and I mentioned some signs of this in the first episode in this series.

But if you are spending a lot of time working on your business and not experiencing the result of that. And here are some examples that I gave in that episode. First thing you do when you wake up in the morning is check Instagram, your email, but you don’t reply to every anything. You leave messages on my to remember to reply later. You are focused on followers and subscribers and searching for a lot of advice on how to get more followers, you maybe don’t feel much resistance to the tasks that you are doing in your business. You’re doing a lot of comfortable tasks.

And then things like you know, if you have a Google Document full of Instagram captions that are 80% written you’re up and down from your desk all day doing loads of laundry making cups of tea, you say yes to coffee with your mom when you plan to work on your business. You spend the day jumping from writing an Instagram caption to an email newsletter to researching how to get more followers and then going and looking in the fridge and just task to task to task. Or if you are editing and re editing and redoing work. If you have lunch at your desk while watching a video about marketing from the latest program that you signed up for if it takes you 15 minutes to record a 50 second Instagram story if you’re working on creating a runway of social media content, maybe like I just need to create four weeks worth of content and then I can go back to posting and I can post consistently.

Those are signs that your brain is begging for a break at once some direction at once the clarity of the growth goal and the power planning. At once Leanne sitting on a peloton riding along with you saying okay, here’s what we’ve got today. We’re going and I love it. She is British, and has the best accent. So she’s saying okay, this is the first effort. This is the second effort, here’s your break, here’s your break and really been encouraging. We’re doing challenging things in that clause, but because it’s broken down so specifically, it’s so easy to get your brain on board.

So if you are doing any of those things that I have just read out, you’re not alone, the fact that I have named them means you’re not alone. Just want to say that the fact there’s procrasti-working means you’re not alone. The fact there’s a name for perfectionism means you’re not alone. No guilt, no shame, no judgment, we don’t want any of that to come along for the ride. But clean rest is something that is worth working on for you. And this is something you are going to really practice and embody inside PGSD.

So when you are having that clean rest, your brain is going to be able to synthesize ideas. And you’re going to be able to develop as I’ve talked about that self trust, that idea that you have in your clean rest time you will be able to implement when it comes to your work time. Also, when you are taking more clean rest than you have been. You are going to be able to do a much better job at getting yourself to do challenging tasks, new tasks, tedious tasks, because you will have an identity beyond your business.

And if you have been wondering how to untangle your personal work from your business revenue. And if for example, as I’ve said if you are resentful that friends and family and ask you more about your business or when someone asks how you are, You say, yeah, the business is doing great. Or if you feel like if your business is going well, you’re going well, if your business is failing, you’re failing any of that kind of thing, then clean rest is going to help you to really develop an identity for yourself beyond your business, which makes it easier to be creators in business. Because when your business is failing, you won’t think you’re a failure.

And when you get a refund request, you won’t make that means something about you. And if there is a problem, you will actually be able to identify the problem and come up with an effective solution. But when we make it about ourselves, we aren’t like, we don’t even want to read the refund request or look at their review or do anything about it, because we don’t want to see something that might be about us. And we’re making it about us.

So those are some of the many reasons clean rest is part of this procrasti-working equation of how to reduce procrasti-working, and the PJSD process of planning properly falling through 80% of the time resting without guilt and repeating that is a process for getting you out of your own way to having you reduce the amount of procrasti-working that you are doing. And it cannot be done without the clean rest. But I want to remind you, and I want to share a couple of examples of how PGSD is working on clean rest, just to really show you that it’s a work in progress, that clean rest is a practice.

And a lot of times it’s going to be the most challenging part of the PGSD process is this clean recipes. It’s one of the most powerful parts. So I know, as I said, we love to think or everyone else might need rest, but not I. We get clean rest inside PGSD. And we practice that and we let it be okay that it’s messy. And we let it be okay that we’re still learning how to do that, I’m still learning how to do that, as I’ve shared, I’m still figuring out and at every stage of life to like when your circumstances change, like having a child Okay, now what does clean rest look like for me.

So that’s always going to be something you’re working on. And you don’t have to get it perfect to be able to really reap the rewards. And in the beginning, just like all non business time count is clean rest, don’t let yourself get too granular about is putting the laundry away clean rest or not clean rest, just business time, clean rest time. And then there’s your commitments, which are also going in your calendar during the power hour. And then you can get more nuanced as you go. And as it becomes helpful for you to do that.

So I’m going to share a few examples from inside the PGSD forum that I have come across as I’ve been in there that are sharing examples of working on clean rest, and what this can look like. And I really want you to listen to these and listen to them carefully. And just be thinking about where you relate to these. And if you relate to all of these, how that might be true that you do. And even and especially identifying how this can help you with your own practice of clean rest.

So the first one, it says this, something I tried this week was putting a chunk of my clean rest at the beginning of my day, two to three hours between waking up and starting work. I’m an early riser naturally, and because of this, I had previously tended to try and stuff as much as I could into the morning. However, I often felt a lot of resistance to this. I’ve never had a particular issue with revenge bedtime procrastination, which is staying up late and fluffing around and all of that kind of thing, which I’ve done a podcast episode on before.

But I have frequently succumbed to revenge morning procrastination, I hadn’t really recognized this until I did the ideal day exercise, which is one that’s in PGSD. And it revealed one of my biggest desires is to feel relaxed and not stressed in the mornings. I also discovered resistance to putting clean rest at the start of the day. So I want you to be thinking, do you do this too? Do you only let yourself put clean rest at the end of the day, maybe this could be helpful for you. So I discovered resistance to putting clean rest at the start of the day. Because I felt it was something I should earn by having a productive day. But when I tried it, I found that completely removing the pressure to start the day right and allowing myself to do whatever I felt like in those few hours whether that was watching TV or scrolling social media, or getting back into a bed into bed with a coffee or all three, made sitting down to work and getting things done later on. Much easier.

This was completely counterintuitive for me but definitely something that I’m going to continue. So that’s one example of how clean rest helps to reduce procrasti-working. Another one, my aha moment this week or came when completing module three of PGSD process, which is the one on clean rest. Once again, actually doing the journaling exercises was way more revealing than I expected. And following along with the recorded workbook calls really helped. I recognize that clean rest is something main, maybe the main thing I struggle with since I first heard Sam talk about it on the podcast,

I’ve been saying for years that I’m incapable of feeling relaxed, even during downtime. And it was a revelation to have that issue name. I’m still terrible at it, though, my clean RAs and procrastination has tended to look exactly the same. And both come with a huge burden of guilt and anxiety. But I found the exercise of listing clean rest activities. And the idea of going into clean rest actively, rather than passively a real light bulb moment.

In a way it feels silly to get to a scheduled clean rest period. And unconsciously going to my list and picking an activity like I’m some kind of alien, learning how to be human. But I have accepted that it is something that I need to actually follow the instructions for and learn, because I never have. And I share that because it is a process, it is a practice to learn clean rest. And that’s totally okay. And it doesn’t need to be the case for you that you have a list of clean rest activities and during your clean rest time you go and pick an activity that could be helpful if you find yourself in overwhelmed when you get to clean rest time, you’re like oh my god, there are 20 million things I want to do. So I’m not going to do anything at all.

In that case, it might be really helpful to just have a you know, a little iPhone note or whatever you want to have, that you have, okay, if I have an hour or more, I’m going to do this, if I have half an hour or less, I’m going to do this, it’s totally up to you. And Power Planning is going to help you figure out what is going to be the best fit for you. But know that it’s a practice.

Another PGSDers said I have also been also this was as part of their weekly review, I’ve been trying to respect my clean rest, especially the weekend, which is a time I get to spend with my partner the most, I used to try to say I would do work tasks that I didn’t get to during the week over the weekend. And it ruins a weekend for me because I don’t want to miss out on our time together. But I feel the stress of the work I should be doing. And it just puts about energy on it all.

In thinking about how I want my ideal day slash life to be, I realized that I want that time to be for me and my family not work. And I have just have plenty work tasks to do over the weekend. And it has already made them so much more fun and relaxed. And we’re even going getting more of the garden projects done and the house finished. I feel silly that it took me so long to realize that I could do that. But also grateful that I finally did.

So I hope that in each of those, you have been able to find something that gives you permission to have clean rest, look the way that makes sense for you. It’s probably not going to look the same as my clean rest, it’s not going to look the same as another PGSDers clean rest. And this is why I don’t say here, clean rest activities that are approved. And here are ones that are not, it’s really about the energy, that you are resting from and knowing as well that when you first start clean rest, especially but even so for me now, years into it, I first started practicing clean rest and experimenting with this in 2014 when I was a uni student, and was riddled with guilt all the time about all the studying, I wasn’t doing that, it’s going to take a minute for your brain to stop thinking thoughts of I should be doing something different.

I should be more productive. So we just need to let ourselves rest and honor that and let that be that guilt there and not try to like get rid of that guilt with working with busy work with under work with overwork. But instead to create that void to really give ourselves an opportunity to meet ourselves, to discover ourselves, to connect with ourselves. And to know that it’s going to be uncomfortable, it might be more uncomfortable than the courageous needle movers that you need to get done. And that’s okay, and you’re not alone.

I also just wanted to share a little example of what’s possible. This is just a little snippet, because this episode has gone on for a while now. But one PGSDer in their weekly review that I saw said this week, I accomplished a lot with Power Planning and I got quality clean rest and accomplished about nine tasks this week, that is the most productive I have been in content creation in my business so far.

And I can assure you that PGSDer is still doing their work with clean rest as well. And that’s the beauty of it that you don’t need to be perfect at it in order to be having the most productive business experience you’ve ever had and enjoying your business the most you ever have at the same time. So that is what I have for you today. With this episode. I want to again invite you to join us in PGSD when the doors open at 6am New York time on the 27th of April, the doors are closing to new students on the Third of May at 11:59pm, New York time.

So you can go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd, to find out more to join the waitlist if the doors aren’t yet open when you’re listening, or to sign up and join us in there. If the doors are open, I would love to see you in there and do this work with you, and have you doing this work alongside our PGSD is it is so important, it matters. It is not to be put off. I know, sometimes we like to think, Oh, I just need to figure out a strategy to get more followers and then I’ll do this work.

This is the work, especially if you’re this far into the procrastination series. And you’re resonating with what I’m saying. I invite you to start this work in PGSD in this enrollment, to not keep waiting, do not procrastinate on joining. To not keep listening to your brain that oh, you need to wait for the perfect time you get lifetime access. You can go through it all at your own pace. The coaching calls aren’t just for a few months. They’re ongoing all the time.

So support is there whenever you need it. We’re all there for you. We’re all cheering for you cheering for your personal growth, your business growth and everything that comes along with that. So I hope you’ll join us samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. If you have enjoyed this episode, please take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram. I’m @perfectionismproject. I’ll be having a beautiful day and I’ll talk to you in the next episode.

If you’re ready to get out of your own way in your business, then I invite you to join us inside perfectionist getting shit done. You can find out more about the program at samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. That’s also where you can sign up. The doors will be open from the 27th of April at 6am New York time, until 11:59pm New York time on the 3rd of May 2022.

Author: Sam Brown