Podcast

Episode 446: How To Stop Revenge Bedtime Procrastination (best of the podcast)

This episode is one of the most popular episodes on this podcast! Revenge bedtime procrastination is something most perfectionists struggle to stop.

When you’re not planning properly as a perfectionist, you put more business tasks on your to-do list than you have time to complete. Because you want to be productive, you put pressure on yourself to get everything done. But then you don’t know what to do first…

You end up working on a random business task until it’s 80% done (and then get distracted by something else) or you do nothing at all. All the while, you’re feeling guilty that you’re so far behind. You’re thinking about all of the things you should be doing that aren’t getting done (like posting consistently on social media). And you’re trying to catch up on all of the life admin your past self has delegated to you.

Every day has an undercurrent of overwhelm, panic and stress. And with every unproductive day that passes, it only gets harder to trust you’ll get everything done. You’re burned out from all the stopping and starting. And you’re beginning to wonder if you’ll ever change.

But then comes bedtime. You promised yourself you’d get to bed on time but you knew you wouldn’t. But why would you? The hours past bedtime are the only guilt-free time you get to yourself. In the still of the night, you can relax and unwind. Nothing is expected of you. The pressure is off. And you have the promise of a more productive tomorrow.

Here’s the thing – a bedtime alarm or better nighttime routine won’t stop revenge bedtime procrastination. Revenge bedtime procrastination is a symptom of a bigger problem.

Because you haven’t been planning properly…

  • You’re putting too much on your to-do list
  • You don’t know what’s important and what isn’t
  • You can’t trust yourself to follow through on your plans
  • You’re trying to catch up on everything your past self put off
  • You’re not getting clean rest during the day

When you start planning properly, revenge bedtime procrastination will stop. You’ll be able to wake up at the time you want, without snoozing your alarm. Instead of watching Instagram stories, you’ll do the things you truly want to with your time – turn a corner of your home into the most inspiring workspace for your business. And you’ll finally read all of those books on your bedside table.

Starting on the 6 March 2024 I’m releasing a 5-Part Podcast Series on How To Stop Procrastinating. An episode will be released every other day so make sure you’re subscribed to this podcast.

P.S. You’ll be able to sign up for PGSD when the doors open on 14-21 March 2024. 

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode446.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

  • Why perfectionists struggle with revenge bedtime procrastination
  • The real reason you can’t get to bed on time
  • Why setting a bedtime alarm or a better nighttime routine won’t help
  • How to stop revenge bedtime procrastination for good
  • What will change when you’re planning properly as a perfectionist

Featured In The Episode:

Free Training: How To Plan Properly As A Perfectionist With Power Planning

If you want to get shit done without burning out, I invite you to watch the free training I’ve created on how to plan properly as a perfectionist with Power Planning. By the end of the series, you’ll be ready to start using Power Planning today to get your perfectionist mindset on your side so you can get out of your own way. Go to samlaurabrown.com/plan to watch the training today.

Take The Perfectionism Quiz To Get Your Personalised Perfectionism Score

If you’re not sure whether perfectionism is what’s making you get in your own way, I invite you to take The Perfectionism Quiz. 

After working with over 1,000 perfectionist entrepreneurs, I created this free quiz so you can get your personalised perfectionism score and discover which of the 5 areas of perfectionism you would most benefit from working on overcoming the most: whether it’s overthinking, procrastination, burnout, all-or-nothing thinking or fear of judgement.

It takes less than 3 minutes to get your unique result and be one step closer to getting shit done without burning out. If you love learning about yourself and you’re ready to get out of your own way, go to samlaurabrown.com/quiz to take the quiz today. 

Work With Me:

My coaching program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD) teaches you how to plan properly as a perfectionist so you can get out of your own way in your business. To find out more about the program and be the first to know when the doors open, join the waitlist today: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.

Listen To The Episode

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction
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

Sam Laura Brown (Custom Intro)
In today’s episode is one of the most popular episodes on this podcast. It is on the topic of revenge bedtime, procrastination. And it’s been so helpful for so many people who listen to this podcast that I want to make sure you have heard it. And if you’ve already listened to this before, I want you to really listen to this with where you are right now, to really see if bedtime procrastination and that revenge, bedtime procrastination is something that’s going on for you, and how to actually solve it. And part of the reason I wanted to share this episode in particular, is not only because it’s one of the most popular episodes on this podcast, but because next week starting on the sixth of March, I’m going to be sharing a five part series on this podcast on how to stop procrastinating. And this is going to really share why you procrastinate, what you’ve been doing to stop procrastinating why that hasn’t worked, like deleting social media apps, writing little reminders, and post it notes like, done is better than perfect setting timers.

All of that, like why that hasn’t worked, and how to actually stop procrastinating so that your business dreams, don’t go with you to your grave, I really want to make sure that you are able to take action and procrastination is one of the five signs of perfectionism. And it’s one of the biggest reasons that smart perfectionist entrepreneurs get in their own way so much that their business never actually gets off the ground. So in this five part series, I’m going to be sharing so much with you that is going to have you actually be able to right away, start taking action and doing that in an aligned way that feels good. I’m going to help you do that in a way that doesn’t freak you out and freak your perfectionist brain out. But have you actually taking that action in a way that feels good. So make sure if you’re not already subscribed to this podcast that you hit the subscribe button. And I hope you enjoyed this episode on how to stop revenge bedtime procrastination.

Sam Laura Brown
In this episode, I’m going to be talking about revenge bedtime procrastination. I wanted to do an episode on this because I recently sent out an email about it and also posted about this on Instagram. And the response to that was huge. So many people said that they could relate to exactly what I was talking about. And so I wanted to do an episode to really have you understanding why you are staying up past your bedtime and not able to get yourself to bed on time. And why setting an alarm to get you to bed, and why having a better nighttime routine isn’t actually going to help you stop that.

And I’m going to be talking about how planning properly and using power planning, which will teach you inside PGSD, how that is going to have you stopping revenge, bedtime, procrastination without you having to force yourself to do it. So I’m going to read out the email that I sent out. And then I’m just going to chat through some really important things to know when it comes to revenge bedtime procrastination. And if you’re not familiar with that term, that’s what a lot of people call it when you are staying up past the time that you planned to go to bed. And you’re essentially doing it as a form of revenge, in the sense that throughout the day, you haven’t had your me time. And you then stay up late to basically get revenge on that, and to have your main time.

So I’m going to be reading out that email and then let’s chat about what exactly is causing this revenge bedtime procrastination. So here’s the email. Revenge bedtime procrastination is something most perfectionist struggle to stop. Here’s why. When you’re not planning properly, as a perfectionist, you put more business tasks on your to do list than you have time to complete. Because you want to be productive, you put pressure on yourself to get everything done. But then you don’t know what to do first. You decided to write an Instagram caption. But realize you don’t have good enough photo to post with it. After 30 minutes of scrolling through your camera roll. You think about finishing off your about me page, but debate how much information you should really share. You don’t know who might read it after all, and you contemplate starting your email list, but still can’t decide on the perfect freebie.

And all of that tech gives you a headache. So you end up working on a random business task until it’s 80% done, and then get distracted by something else, or you do nothing at all. All the while you’re feeling guilty that you’re so far behind. You’re thinking about all the things you should be doing that aren’t getting done, like posting consistently on social media. And you’re trying to catch up on all the life admin that your past self has delegated to you. Everyday has an undercurrent of overwhelm, panic and stress. And with every unproductive day that passes, it only gets harder to trust yourself that you’ll get everything done. You’re burned out from all the stopping and starting, and you’re beginning to wonder if you’ll ever change but then comes bedtime.

You promise yourself you get to bed on time, but you knew wouldn’t. Why would you? The hours past bedtime or the only guilt free time that you get yourself. In the still of the night you can relax and unwind. Nothing is expected of you. The pressure is off, and you have the promise of a more productive tomorrow. Here’s the thing. A bedtime alarm or better nighttime routine won’t stop revenge bedtime procrastination. Revenge, bedtime, procrastination is a symptom of a bigger problem. Because you haven’t been planning properly. You’re putting too much on your to do list. You don’t know what’s important and what isn’t. You can’t trust yourself to follow through on your plans. You’re trying to catch up on everything your past self has put off, and you’re not getting enough clean rest during the day.

When you start planning properly. Revenge bedtime, procrastination will stop. You’ll be able to wake up at the time you want without soothing your alarm. And instead of watching Instagram Stories, you’ll be able to do the things that you really want to do, like turning a corner of your home into the most inspiring workplace for your business. And you’ll finally read all of those books on your bedside table. So that is the email that I wrote about revenge bedtime, procrastination, sign up for PGSD, if you can relate to that, because you are going to be power planning and planning properly as a perfectionist and able to stop the revenge bedtime procrastination.

And I want to talk about exactly why that is the case. Why is it that planning properly will have you stopping revenge bedtime, procrastination, when setting an alarm to get you to bed, or a better nighttime routine won’t work. And you’ve probably tried those things. You probably give it I’ll set an alarm and that’ll remind me that I need to get to bed and when the alarm goes off, and then you just snooze it and then you snooze it again and then you save it again. And then you just stop the alarm altogether, and you’re up a few hours later and we really want to get out of this cycle of revenge bedtime procrastination, not because it’s bad to go to bed late. I really want to dispel all of this hype that is, can you dispel hype, dispel the myth around that you have to wake up early to be successful. I’m a morning person, I enjoy waking up early.

And wait, hold that thought. I enjoy waking up early. But I would like to sleep in pauses and time. I say that because this morning, Lydia woke up at 330. And that was too early. So there is a caveat to that. But it’s not for everyone to wake up early. It’s a 5am 6am 7am. We all have different natural rhythms. We all have preferences for the kind of things that we like to do throughout the day. Some people prefer to wake up in the morning before everyone else is awake, and really feel like they’ve got their day in that way. Other people like to stay up late. Other people like to wake up at an average time, goes to bed on average time. And you can achieve your business goals, regardless of the time that you choose to wake up.

So that’s something to pay attention to, if you’re just trying to wake up early, because you think you should, which is probably because you’re following planning advice that has been telling you specifics about when you should do things like you have to wake up at 5am, for example, that when you are power planning, you will be creating a routine for yourself a calendar for yourself, a plan for yourself, that actually works for you, and your lifestyle, and your goals and your relationships and everything else you’ve got going on. It’s not based on these arbitrary rules that have been created around what successful people do.

So we want to get out of revenge bedtime procrastination, because of the impact that this has on self trust. So you want to have you go into bed when you said you would waking up when you said you would not because there’s some ideal time to do it. But because when you keep making promises to yourself, and then breaking them over and over and over again, that can’t help but impact your self image. So that’s a story tell yourself about yourself. It’s a way that you think of yourself, it is so influential in terms of habits and routines, we live into who we believe we are, it’s magnetic, we are pulled towards what we believe about ourselves and being consistent with that.

So if you believe that you are someone who doesn’t do what they said they would, that is going to be what you are pulled towards doing and it’s going to be very challenging to become someone who does the things they said they would. Now in PGSD, that’s who we were, that we help people to become someone who does what they said they would, who is able to follow through consistently do the things that they know they need to do. And we part of that of the work that we do is working on self image, which comes later in the PGSD process, because that’s so influential, but your self-trust, which we also work on PGSD, in the persistence phase, your self trust, that is destroyed through revenge bedtime procrastination, is going to seep over into your business.

So that even though it might feel completely unrelated, if you keep promising yourself, you get to bed on time and promising yourself, you’ll wake up at a certain time. And every day you’re breaking those two promises with yourself on most days, then it means when it comes time to actually plan what you’re going to do with your business. When it comes time to set goals, you are not going to believe that you’re the kind of person who will do it. And so when that’s the case, we either put way too much on our plate, because we’re not going to do it anyway. So I may as well at least appear to myself to be ambitious. Or you’re not going to do any planning at all. And you might find yourself kind of oscillating between the two of those. Because you are not able to trust yourself that it’s going to get done. So like well, why bother making plans because I know I’m not going to do it anyway.

So we want to get out of this revenge, bedtime, procrastination because it influences every area of life also, when you are doing it, it’s this very sneaky form of self sabotage in the sense that it creates a lot of drama. So when you were doing this, you are constantly having conversations with yourself about getting to bed on time and waking up on time. Then there’s the drama of staying up late and then waking up late and then feeling behind and for so many perfectionists feeling overwhelmed and behind is our MO. That is our comfort that is our home. That is our familiarity. And so we do things unconsciously, that perpetuate this feeling of being behind because that’s where we feel most comfortable. And if we’re not feeling behind, we feel like we’ve missed something or we feel like things are too good to be true and the other shoes gonna drop.

So we kind of create this state of being where we’re constantly behind. Am I constantly feeling overwhelmed, so this feeds into it as well. And what happens then is we get to kind of live in this land of, well, if only I could wake up on time, then I’d be so productive, then my business would be so successful, then I’d be fit and healthy, then then then we have all of these ideas about what life would be like if we could only wake up on time. And then we hold ourselves apart from that, so that we can blame not waking up on time, as the reason that we haven’t achieved our goals that we don’t have the body, we want that we aren’t eating healthy, that our business isn’t where we want it to be.

We can blame Oh, if only you could wake up early, instead of having to look at our beliefs about ourselves in terms of whether we feel like we’re good enough, and having to blame our lack of intelligence or talent or that kind of thing like I on this podcast all the time. And in PGSD, we talk about the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. And when it comes to being in that fixed mindset that perfectionist have, when we’re in that we are always wanting that to be a scapegoat. Whenever we are failing, we want to blame procrastination, we want to blame anything else that we can, instead of having to really feel like we gave it our all, and we still couldn’t do it. To a perfectionist that’s the worst kind of failure. To feel like we gave a full effort and it still wasn’t good enough.

So we do a whole lot of procrastinating, getting overwhelmed and indulging in that burning out all or nothing like all of those perfectionist tendencies and signs are ways that we protect ourselves from that vulnerable feeling of going all in and are all in efforts still not being good enough. And that heavily relates to revenge bedtime procrastination, because we get to blame, staying up late and waking up late. Instead of having to look at whether we’re actually able to achieve our goals. It’s one way that we protect our potential this revenge bedtime procrastination. Also, just the drama itself really gives us something to be spending time, you know, learning about morning routines, nighttime routines, and all these different tips and hacks.

And we can really put a lot of mental energy into trying to create a sorry, into trying to solve this problem that we’ve created for ourselves that we can’t get to bed on time. And then we can’t wake up when we planned. And so that energy that we don’t then have to spend on more challenging and vulnerable things like building our business that might fail in front of friends and family. And all these other things that were scared to do. Were like, oh, no, just focus on this more comfortable problem of not being able to get to bed on time and not being able to wake up on time. And so if we can solve the revenge bedtime procrastination, knowing that it is a form of self sabotage, knowing it’s very common, it’s very normal. If you are doing this, your brain is working.

It is designed to keep you safe and comfortable and alive and revenge bedtime procrastination helps with that. But if you are wanting to really do that personal development work, get out of your own way, get out of the perfectionist mindset and into the growth mindset than we really want to be seeing this as a form of self sabotage, and paying attention to the many ways that it keeps us back and really been willing to start planning properly and committing to that. And getting to bed when we plan again, it doesn’t have to be early, you can get to bed at 3am. If that is what you plan, that’s totally okay. But even just that alone, instead of trying to get to bed earlier, just actually admit to yourself, like let it be okay that you go to bed at 2am or 4am, or 11pm, or whatever that looks like for you.

There’s so much self trust that is built in that alone of just aligning the time you’re actually going to bed at the moment with when you said you would. So often we try to align that by changing the time that we are going to bed or changing the time that we wake up. But instead, what you can do in the beginning, is align it by saying that you’re going to stay up late and saying that you’re going to wake up late. And that alone will be very interesting. Because when we do that, I was like, I don’t want to be that kind of person. And this is where we really have to be on to ourselves. Because when we are saying oh no, I’m gonna go to bed at this time and I’m gonna wake up early and do all these things.

It’s letting us believe that we’re a certain kind of person when our actions aren’t actually consistent with that. And because we think that we’re doing something different to what we’re actually doing, and we don’t have that awareness. surrounded, we aren’t actually able to change. Because we think that having the intention of getting to bed on time, and waking up at a certain time is the same as being the person who does that. So we want to, Yes, identify as being the person we want to be, but not in the way that it makes us self sabotage even further.

So inside PGSD, we talk about self image and all this kind of thing. So I won’t go into too much more here. But we’ve just really want to be onto ourselves with this revenge bedtime procrastination. You know, a lot of people do it, and a lot of people joke about it. And oh, yeah, I do that too. And there were so many people who commented on that post, and who were just saying, like, this is me. And this is exactly what I do. And so I really felt like it was important to talk about it on the podcast, because it is something that gas we can joke about. And it’s very common. And I definitely have times when I have done this, where my clean rest has been lacking. And it’s okay to do it.

But we want to really use this as an opportunity to get out of our own way. And to see this as something that we can work on with planning properly, that this is going to solve for this, instead of just trying to set an alarm trying to have a better bedtime routine. And you know, people say, wine down, no, do some skincare, maybe, or read in bed, put your phone away, like all of that kind of thing. If you’ve tried that, and it hasn’t worked, it’s not going to. You don’t have to find a different routine, or set an alarm at a different time, it’s really about solving for the actual problem, which is that you’re not planning properly.

So I’ve talked about in the planning series, that was episode 307, 308, 309, 310 and 311. Those five episodes, I talked about the benefits of planning properly, and all the incredible things that does for our businesses, and that the only reason we’re not planning properly is because most planning advice doesn’t work for perfectionist. So it’s not your fault. There’s nothing wrong with you if you’ve been doing this. But when we start planning properly, we’re able to stop this and actually create so much self trust and be the person who is implementing what they know who is taking action, who is taking all the things you’ve learned from programs that you’ve been in actually implementing that using that putting past procrasti-learning to use, that’s what we want to have you doing. And planning properly by power planning will help with that.

So a few specific ways I want to talk about with how planning and how it will help is that you will figure it out when you work best. When you wake up best go to bed best, you will really go through the three steps of how planning so there’s a Power Hour, little tweaks and the weekly review. As you’re doing that you make the three month commitment to that. So you’re continuously doing that each week that you will really start to get a feel for your natural rhythms, how you work, when you work best when you don’t work well at all. And really see what that is for you in and being able to let go of all these ideas that were sold about having to wake up early. And like for example having to wake up at 4am or having to stay up super late and all these different ideas that are out there to instead really get in tune with what actually works for you.

If you’re a night owl, and you want to stay up late, maybe figuring out how to just stay up late and let that be okay and not try and continuously tell yourself this story that you should be getting to bed earlier because everyone else does. We should be waking up early, because everyone else does. That too instead, embrace how you actually work best and remove that drama, which is going to feel uncomfortable, because as I said, we like having that drama around it. So we don’t have to do other things in our life that are more scary. And then a more challenging, we can instead just be busy solving this problem. I just wish I could get to bed on time.

But you will really when you up how planning, really figure out when you work best for me, this is how I figured out that I work best in the mornings, is that I’ve tried all different things. Throughout my use of power planning, I’ve tried working first thing in the morning, I have tried doing slow morning. So for pretty much the whole of 2020 I did this, that I didn’t start my workday until around midday. So I would do this long morning routine of reading a book and meditating and doing all those things. And it sounded great. And part of the reason that I did that, going back to these ideas we have about when you should and shouldn’t be working is that to me, when I was finishing my day at 6pm, like everyone in the corporate world that I come from, I felt like I was working hard enough and I was deserving.

Even though I didn’t get started till around midday, I felt like I was doing more. But when this year actually, it’s 2022 now, last year in 2021, when I changed it, this is before I have Lydia, when I change it to start my workday at 8:30am, finishing at 230, which works so much better for me. And I did that because I could see my power planning that I really took way longer to do tasks when I had them in the afternoon compared within the morning. Like it takes me a lot more mental energy to do something at 3pm than it does to do it at 9am. And so I can really see through doing my weekly review and then making those adjustments in next time I was doing my Power Hour and continuing to do that, that it didn’t work for me to have this slow morning that so many people talk about loving their slow mornings.

And that might be you. And that’s amazing for you. Power planning can help you really embrace that, and have an incredible slow morning and then warm up inside your day. But I love to just get in and start my day and do my work and then have the afternoon off. And as uncomfortable as that is because my brain tells me I’m not working hard enough, I don’t deserve what I’ve achieved, I am then able to do that work on it directly on that personal development that I need to do that. They’re so comfortable with what I’m achieving, even though I’m not working as hard as some other people are, in my mind, like this whole illusion we have about what everyone else is doing. But you can really figure it out with power planning when you work best.

And so for some people, for example, like for myself, I really work best when I just have a big chunk of time. Ideally, I’m just like eating while I’m working, I just have this very condensed chunk no more than six hours. Ideally, I’d say four to five hours, where I’m just getting shit done. And then I break but other people do a little bit of work here, a little bit of work there and and kind of you know, doing little chunks of maybe an hour or two hours or half an hour. And they do that all throughout the day. And I find that when I do that I feel much more drained. My work is of lower quality, it takes me longer to get things done. But I know all of that because I have been power planning.

So that’s going to help you when it comes to revenge bedtime procrastination, because it might actually be that going to bed whenever you have been going to bed that you’ve been thinking is too late, is actually a pretty good time for you. And that waking up when you’ve been waking up, which you might be thinking is too late is actually a pretty good time for you. If that could be the case. And it might be as well that you really recognize that isn’t the case. And you can see hard evidence of that. I think a lot of us who if we’re doing this revenge bedtime procrastination would say, I know that it’s not working for me, I know that I’m not being my best self that I’m not being intentional with time. But were so vague about the impact of that. There’s no real motivation to change it.

But when you are power planning, and you are really present to what there is to do, and you’re really present to when you’re not doing it not in this vague, wishy washy, I should be more productive way. But you actually know exactly what you had planned to do. And you can notice exactly when you’re going off course and really get curious about huh, this is interesting. I plan to do something and now I’m not doing it. When we’re working from a to do list. We don’t get that insight into ourselves and so we miss a whole lot of self sabotage. But when you are Power planning, you’re really going to be getting to know yourself, you’re really going to be figuring yourself out.

And also, like a lot of things be okay that other people might not do, such as working in random chunks of time, staying up late, waking up late, all those different things. So also, when you are power planning, and this is huge, you will get enough clean rest so that you’re able to get me time throughout the day. And you don’t have to wait until after bedtime, for the pressure to be off for the guilt to be gone. That’s a big reason this revenge bedtime procrastination is there, like, as I talked about at the beginning of this, that if you are not planning properly, you’re putting too much in your to-do-list, you don’t know what’s important, what isn’t, you can’t trust yourself to follow through with plans, you’re trying to catch up on all that stuff your past self has left for you.

When we are doing that we feel so much pressure and stress and overwhelm. So that means even if during the day, you are hanging out with a friend, or you are doing whatever you want to do as your time off. And by the way, if you don’t even know what you’d like to do for fun, that’s another sign you really need to be planning properly. Because for so many entrepreneurs, especially if you really feel like you are your business, and if the business is succeeding, you’re succeeding and the business is failing, you’re failing that is caused by you not getting enough clean rest. And having that opportunity to really explore who you are beyond your business, which then when you get to do that, you have so much more courage when it comes to business.

Because it doesn’t feel like everything is a reflection of how good you are as a person. So you’re able to try things to innovate to do things that might fail. And that creates so much more success. But when we are not getting enough clean rest, which is resting without guilt throughout the day. So when you’re not planning properly, what will happen is usually you’re working from a very long to do list, maybe you’re not planning properly, and you’re doing that in the calendar. And so you have this really full calendar, and you’re in the mentality of I will rest once everything is done. I’m just the kind of person who likes to have everything done, I prefer it that way I rest better when everything’s done. Before I’ve set it up before too. So if that is where you’re at when you are doing your Power Hour, what you will do is you will plan your clean rest before your needle movers. And that is so important.

It’s so important that you treat clean rest, like any other tasks that you have for your business. And inside PGSD we go through what is clean rest and what isn’t different activities like what that looks like. But you need to have time throughout the day to get your clean rest. Otherwise, you will get revenge on yourself for that and stay up past the time you want to go to bed. Our brains need a break, our brains need a light at the end of the tunnel. And if we do not give ourselves a break intentionally, our brain will get it for itself. And it will procrastinate and scroll through Instagram and do mindless things like that, which you’re probably doing as well.

Or you will stay up past your bedtime because that is when you give yourself permission to rest and to unwind because you think, Well, I’m not meant to be doing anything right now except sleeping. And so this is totally okay. But during the day, there’s this undercurrent of like shoulds these are the things I should be doing. So you don’t actually let yourself have that guilt free rest. But it’s so important. You need to really treat clean rest with respect. And I’m still figuring out what clean rest looks like for me, now that I’m a mom. And I’m still working on the business and doing all these other things as well. With every season, you’ll be figuring out what that looks like for you.

But getting that clean rest and prioritizing. It will make you so much more focused and productive. When it comes time to work on your business. If you are finding that you’re struggling to stay motivated to work on your business, and when you sit down to work on your business, you just feel like you have no energy for it. You don’t have any ideas for it or very rarely. And you’re just kind of trudging along and chipping away and never really getting anywhere. That is because you are not getting enough clean rest. Because you haven’t been planning properly. You haven’t been following plenty of advice that actually works for a perfectionist. So you have just been slogging away, and your brain is like this is tedious. We need a break. I can’t see one coming. So let’s go look on Instagram.

And then that only creates more stressor and pressure, stress, stress and pressure and overwhelm because you’re getting even more behind on your to do list. And you might try and rewrite that to do list so you don’t look behind on it. But you know you’re behind you can feel that you’re not on top of your shit. And that is the undercurrent throughout the day. That’s all about clean rest. And this is why setting an alarm to get to bed isn’t going to help. It’s why having a better nighttime routine isn’t going to help. You need to have time throughout the day that is for you. And that will look different for everyone what that involves, but you need to have time where you are not feeling guilty that you’re not being more productive.

And when you are doing this clean rest, when it comes time to work, you will be able to focus on much more easily because there is that light at the end of the tunnel. And your brain knows that a break is coming up. So especially if you’re wanting to do courageous things, which often the needle movers are, they’re not very time consuming things that require the most courage, it’s so much easier to do that. When you can look at your calendar and say, Okay, I have these couple of scary things to do this morning, or this afternoon or this evening, whatever time of day you want to work, that’s totally okay. But I know, two hours after, I’m going to be able to do whatever I want guilt free.

And what most people find is that when they’re actually resting, when they planned to rest, and it’s clean rest, that you will do things in your rest time that is restorative and recharging. But when you are resting, when you feel guilty, you will do things that are trying to help you escape the guilt that aren’t going to be recharging, like scrolling social media, when we plan clean rest in our calendar. So say if you planned a whole day of clean rest, you are probably not going to plan to scroll through Instagram that whole day. But if you are resting as a form of escape, with a lot of guilt, it could be that you spent all day scrolling, but when you’re being so intentional with your time, including with your rest, that’s not going to be appealing because you’re there’s no guilt to escape.

So your brain and be like, Okay, this is a bit boring. But when you’re trying to escape the guilt, oh, we can go on and on and on and on and on trying to distract ourselves. So with power planning as well, it will get you out of this cycle where you’re constantly feeling behind. So I’ve talked about how self image is involved in this when you believe that you’re the kind of person who doesn’t do what they said they will, who’s behind on their business on their life admin, who needs reminders from other people, if you’re often saying, Hey, can you remind me Hey, can you keep me accountable and make try do XYZ, then you’ve got some work to do around your self image and around this.

And we’ll help you with that inside PGSD. But doing Power planning will get you out of this cycle where you’re constantly feeling behind. And why it feels vulnerable to not be behind. And when we just want to stay in this situation where were really just creating so much overwhelm by putting too much on our plate or being too vague about what we’re doing all this just so we can feel behind and kind of keep living into that. So when you are power planning, you will plan what you do, it’ll actually be realistic, you will get it done. And this feeling of being behind and the stress of that will go away and you will learn how to be okay, with not feeling stressed and not feeling behind as weird as that might sound because he might be like, I want nothing more than to not feel that way. But it becomes comfortable and familiar. And so we kind of hold on to it like this security blanket.

So with power planning, you will be okay with letting that go. You’ll also be very intentional with your time when you’re power planning. So you can use your me time for things you actually want to do. You won’t just be watching random videos, scrolling through Instagram watching TikTok whatever it is that you were doing, you will actually be doing the things you want to do when you’re in your business. And you’ll also be doing the things that you want to do when you are resting. And that’s going to compound because when you are showing up in your business and following through with your plans and then you’re showing up for your rest and following through with your plans.

You are really going to have such a different relationship with yourself. It is going to elevate who you believe you are which is going to make achieving your goals so much easier. It’s going to help you attract a whole different kind of friend into your life if you are in being that the friends in your life on the kind of people that you really vibe with and yes, you love them. But they aren’t really bringing out the best of you and challenging you and cheering for you with your business and interpersonal development. When you are power planning and being so intentional with your time which doesn’t mean you’re perfect and it doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be things that you put in your calendar and it doesn’t create the result you wanted to.

Power planning does not help you avoid the reality of business which is there are going to be things you do that will fail and things you do where you are rejected and all of that kind of thing. That is part of it. You will develop Same resilience, you’ll be able to get through that and bounce back so much more quickly. But all of this to say that you will, when you are this kind of person, you will be attracting that kind of person into your life. And if you are feeling like you are lacking friends that really get you and get business and get personal development, then A, join PGSD you’re gonna meet so many people like that in there, but you will be magnetic and you will attract people who will like you instead of really attracting more people who are similar to you that are currently procrastinating not doing what they said they weren’t and that kind of thing.

And I want to finish this up just by saying that I know that when you’re in this cycle of staying up late and waking up late and staying up late and waking up late and going against your word, that it can feel like it’s not possible to change that. And I really just again, want to underline that the only reason this is happening is because you’re not following planning advice that actually works for a perfectionist. Tou’ve been putting too much in to-do-list, you don’t know what’s important, what isn’t, you can’t trust yourself to follow through, you’re trying to catch up on everything your past self gave to you. You’re not getting clean rest that they’re all planning problems. And when you are power planning and planning properly, as a perfectionist, it will be easy to follow through on your plans, because you’re planning in a way that supports you rather than a way that is turning your own mindset on and treating your perfectionism and making you get in your own way. When you’re planning properly. It is so much easier to get out of your own way.

So I just wanted to finish by saying that because I know that this revenge bedtime procrastination can really feel like it’s just who you are, it’s just something you’re going to have to manage. If you are trying to manage it. That is a sign that planning properly is going to be so helpful because you won’t have to manage it anymore. You will become a different person. And you’ll be the kind of person who that isn’t even appealing to you plan when you go to bed. And that might be like, but you plan when you go to bed and you do that. You plan when you to wake up and you do that. And you honor your word. You honor yourself, you honor your business, you honor your potential instead of trying to protect it. You’re actually pursuing that you’re seeing what you’re capable of. You’re able to be courageous to put yourself out there to be willing to fail publicly and if that happens, you bounce back and you’re supported and cheered on. That’s who we work with inside PGSD. If you’re not in there we would love to invite you in. So samlaurabrown.com/pgsd is where you can sign up.

Outro
I hope you’ve enjoyed that episode on how to stop revenge bedtime procrastination. And I do want to make sure you know, as I mentioned at the top of this episode, that starting on the sixth of March, I am releasing a five part podcast series on how to stop procrastinating. An episode will be released every other day, from the sixth of March onwards, that’s the Wednesday. So if you’re not already subscribed to this podcast, then make sure you hit the subscribe button. And in that series as well, I’m going to be telling you more about my program, perfectionist getting shit done. If you want to get yourself in an environment that actually makes it feel safe to do scary things.

And you’re also going to learn how to plan properly as a perfectionist how to actually get out of your own way and really implement what you might have already heard me talking about on this podcast, then I want to invite you into PGSD. So I’m going to tell you more about that in this series. So you can decide whether or not it’s for you. The enrollment dates for perfectionist getting shit done, are the 14th to the 21st of March 2024. So mark your calendar if you already know you’re going to be joining us inside. But yeah, subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already, and get excited for PGSD to open so you can actually get out of your own way.

Author: Sam Brown