The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

209 ⎸ How to stop procrastinating with Robin Emdon

• Serena Shoup, CPA • Episode 209

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In this episode, I had an incredibly insightful conversation with Robin J. Emdon, author of "GetResultsology - The Science of Getting Stuff Done" and a productivity coach who specializes in helping people overcome procrastination. In this conversation Robin dives deep into the psychology behind why we procrastinate and provides concrete strategies to break free from it.

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • The neuroscience behind procrastination
  • The three neurotransmitters you need to get into your groove
  • Why external accountability is crucial
  • Strategies for tackling boring work that still needs to get done

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Meet Robin

Robin J. Emdon is an accountability coach and creator of the GetResultsology® System. His journey started in his family’s retail business, but he soon realised his true passion was empowering others. In 2001, he trained as a life coach in the U.S., which led him to specialise in accountability coaching.

During the 2020 pandemic, Robin faced his own challenge with procrastination despite years of coaching experience. Determined to find a solution, he developed the GetResultsology® System to help others and himself.

Based in South Devon, England, Robin helps clients all over the world boost their income and profits by achieving extraordinary results through accountability coaching. In his spare time, he enjoys sharing his passion for local history. 

Connect with Robin

🌐 Main Website: getresultsology.com

💼 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinjemdon/

📱 Instagram: @robinjemdon https://www.instagram.com/robinjemdon/

🎙️ Goalbusters Podcast: https://getresultsology.com/podcast/

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Welcome to the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast. Robin, how are you? I'm fabulous. Thank you. How are you, Serena? I'm doing great. I just got back from a week long vacation, just diving right into recording the podcast today. So thank you for coming on with me. we met, actually, you found me. I. Because you invited me onto your podcast and I had such a great time recording with you that I figured I should have you on my podcast. And, so yeah, why don't you introduce, yourself to the listener, who you are, how you help people, and then we'll dive Yeah, what a splendid fine too. I was ever so pleased to meet you. I think that was several months ago now when we first met. Yeah. so, uh, I think it was April, wasn't it? Alright, so, so my name is Robin j Emden and I'm an accountability coach and an author, and I think we're gonna talk a little bit about the book today. I work with people who run their own businesses, basically solopreneurs, people with no boss. People that have like me have distractions everywhere and never enough hours in the day, basically. And together I work with my clients, cut through and to get them more focused, follow through on the big ideas that actually get things moving in their lives. And I have what I call the momentum formula. It's all about doing it today, profiting tomorrow because you did it today. And repeat. If you do that day in, day out, then you are well on the road to becoming successful at achieving whatever it is you want to do. So I live here in, in, in Toki, in South Devon, in sunny England. It is sunny today. We're having a heat wave, which is quite, becoming quite a common event here. And, yeah, and I live about a mile from the sea. So, and I'm also, I'm a mile from the countryside, so I get the best of both worlds. Oh, that sounds lovely. So how much sunshine do you guys actually get per year? About, uh, well we had 10 minutes this morning and about five minutes this afternoon, so we got about another five minutes to go. Actually, we are in the middle of our third heat wave, they call it. I mean, I was talking to someone yesterday in Las Vegas and our heat wave is kind of like midwinter for them. Oh wow. Yeah, so probably still pretty nice. Yeah, it's, it's not unbearable where I am today. I, I've, obviously, I've got a fan on, but in, in England, air conditioning is still only something you find in shops. Most, most homes don't have it, but I think we're gonna have to think about it in the not too distant future. I. Yeah. Well, so I was excited to have you on the podcast because, you talk a lot about. Getting results, right, getting things done, and avoiding procrastination. And, I think it's a really, really great topic, especially, I mean, for anyone really, but a lot of us bookkeepers tend to get hung up on little details and I. You know, there's parts of our jobs that are not that fun but they still need to get done. So I wanted to bring you on and chat about, some of the discoveries that you've made, and the book that you wrote all about this. let's start kind of from the beginning. Like what, drew you into this field of, Figuring all this out or bringing, you know, the book, the book out. So all of that, Sure, us how you got here. sure. Okay. So I was born in, no, I won't go that far back. Okay. So, around the year 2000, I was running a family business of, uh, gift shops in a tourist, popular tourist destination in my part of the world. And, I caught sight one day I was watching, um. I don't watch soaps, but there was flicking channels on the TV and the soap came up and it was an Australian one, and, and the couple were having a bit of an argument and she was saying, why don't you love me anymore? And he was saying, of course. I love you, Marlene. And she said, well, what are you going to sail around the world for without me? Then why are you gonna do that? You'll be gone for a year. And he said, it's only a year and then I'll be back. She said, yeah, but you don't love me. And he said, no, I do love you. But he said, you what? Understand I can't see myself dying and getting to the pearly gates and going, oh geez, Gabriel, could I have just one more day in the shop? And he said, I just can't see it. And I was, I just stopped and I was like. I can't, I have four. I had four shops. I was like, yeah, I don't want another day in the shop either. I just, it wasn't my ping, it wasn't my passion. So I completely reinvented myself and did something that I was passionate about, which was working with people. And I decided to train as a life coach, and I trained. I got a, after, working with him for a while, I got a personal invite to go and train with Tony Robbins in California. At a time with a view, with a view to working for him, at the end of it all as one of his, one of his coaches. And, anyway, that was brilliant. but, at the end of it all, uh, eventually his plans changed. He went off in a different direction and my plans changed in that he really wanted me to move to San Diego if, if an offer was forthcoming. And, and I was like, no, I, I, I've got family, young family here in England. At that time, it just wasn't an option to work remotely. So, it was doable, but he wasn't geared up for it yet. So I stayed in England, started up my business, and then as lot would have it, a few years go by and then I stopped. I put it on hold and to focus on being a full-time single father, which I had two very young boys and I spent, I wanted to focus on raising my family and I didn't wanna do coaching at that point. Cut to 2019, and I'm sat in a coffee shop having. Coffee with my older brother, and I'm bragging. I got my degree. I got my degree. I've been working from home, and I finally finished my education and he was like, oh, well that's a really boring story. I don't care really. And I'm like, oh yeah, my, I, I wasn't listening. I said, mind you, I said, trust me to take 10 years to do something I should have done in six. And he went. Oh yeah, I can have a go about that. Why was that then? And he said, really excited to hear that I, he had something to get me for. And I said, oh, you know, procrastination. And I laughed and he laughed and we changed the subject driving home. I thought, hang on a minute. What's wrong with this picture? You are a trained life coach. I mean, these are skills you don't forget. Serena, you, you know, you just don't. And like, you don't forget bookkeeping skills. You may have to update yourself on some of the systems, but you don't forget the basics. I mean, I, I learned bookkeeping and I haven't forgotten the basics. I definitely wouldn't know the what's up to date, but I haven't forgotten the basics. I understand it. and coaching is probably, is probably the same. So it it different profession of course. But, I'm waffling. So what happened was, was I, I was thinking to myself, well. I'm a coach, and why do coach, what, what am I doing? Procrastinating. I can't do that, that that's incongruent, that that doesn't fit right. So I was like, okay, well, my clients never, my clients never procrastinated. I never let them, well, how did I never leave? And I realized that they were getting, like 80% of their results were coming from like 20% of the coaching, which was I thought, okay, what's going on there? So I thought, all right. And then I asked myself two coaching questions, which was, where else in my life does procrastination show up? And or whatever it is. In this case, it was procrastination. And the other question is, and what does it cost me? And by the time I got home I thought, okay, I know the answer to those questions. One, absolutely everywhere. Every aspect of my life has been affected by it cost me, oh my goodness, so much. And I realized I actually got quite upset about how much it had cost me, and really angry with myself for letting it happen, and I could trace it back. Decades. Absolutely decades. And I realized, I'd always thought about procrastination. Like I used to think about a common cold, you know, oh, I've got a cold. Oh no, it'll go away in its own time. Didn't think anything of it. You just worked through them normally, unless they get it turned into something worse, you just work through them. I mean, I had procrastination. I just worked through the procrastination, never thought, give much thought until then, and I thought, hang on, this is a lot more serious than a common cold in terms of the consequences it's had on my life. And so I rang my brother and I said, you know, you used to be a mental health professional. Just remind me what's the cure for a procrastination? And I had a little mental note paper, pattern paper, and there was silence at the other end of the phone. And then I heard a sharp intake of breath. And then he said, Nope, got nothing. what really? If you don't know, and I'm not sure. I had some ideas, but I wasn't really sure. So then the gift that keeps on giving. COVID happened. And I mean by, it keeps on giving as it keeps taking things away from our lives, which was in this time, in this instance, it was the lockdowns began. And in that time I decided, okay, I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. I'm gonna study it. And the first thing I found, Serena, was that in one 10 year period between in the early two thousands, over 900 research papers had been done, projects had been done into procrastination. And I thought, okay, this is probably one of the most. Studied fields of psychology in the world. How come I didn't know about it? And also, well, the answers must be out there, but I'm not a scientist, you see? Although I understood how to read a research paper because I'd just finished a degree, so I kind of knew how to read them. I don't retain scientific information very well. My last exam at school was biology and I got 9%, and that's because the teacher took pity on me because I'd spelled my name right. He actually said that to me. You spelled your name right, Emden. So I'm giving you 9%. Yeah. I didn't answer any questions. He said, well, your name's 9%. I got put something down and that, that was how bad I was at it. I was awful. So I thought, well, I need to take this science. I can read it, I can follow it, and then I need to turn it into plain English, comprehensible English, English that people can understand and utilize. That's where the book started. So you wrote a book in how long During COVID. So. Okay, so, one of the chapters in the book deals with confidence and overconfidence. Now, lack of confidence is a very. big part, people who struggle with confidence will struggle, usually struggle with procrastination 'cause they don't have enough self-belief that they can do something. But overconfidence is just as bad and overconfidence is when you go, right? I think I've got enough material here to write a book. Now I think I'm gonna do nine chapters. I'm gonna split each chapter into three parts. And I, and I'll, I'll get a sketch of that done. Did some maths in my head, did some bookkeeping, and this is why I'm not a bookkeeper. I decided I could do it in three months to get down the basic bones of the book and then work from there. That was five years ago, and there's my book back there, and that came out April this year. So five overconfidence, so it's five years, 80,000 words. And a video course and a and, and, and other material as well that I put with it to try and get the information out there. But yeah, five years, I guess three years of that was doing the research. Now, as I said, I was researching other people's research, so I, I didn't need to read 900 papers. I just needed to find the summaries and find and pull the threads together and see, and there's a lot of other books out there, but there's a lot of misinformation out there. There's a lot of misnomers about procrastination too. through this book, you were able to find really what procrastination is about, and you say that it's not. About necessarily being lazy, but something deeper. So can you talk about what really causes procrastination in a sure let, let's deal with laziness. First of all, laziness is a choice. And I, I can't help people that are being lazy. Oh, for, for two reasons. First of all, one person's laziness is another person's rest and relaxation time and who is anybody but them to be a judge of that? Procrastinators are people that want to work. No, they should work. And they're just not able to. There's something stopping them that's not laziness, that's they're stuck. Someone who's lazy is actually making a conscious choice. I don't wanna work today. And I don't judge that, but that's the distinction that I make in it to, to help you understand it better. So what I realized was, was that procrastination, what I soon discovered was it's an inside job. It's in your brain. It's as hardwired into your brain as hunger and the need for sleep and procreation is in fact that procreation is part of the clue because it comes from the same part of the brain where your survival mechanism is the limbic system. Your survival mechanism is the strongest part of your brain. The limbic system is very much the will overpower everything else. If you see a tiger coming at you and it wants to eat you, you know you're gonna put your trainers on and run. And your friend might say, why are you putting your trainers on? You can't run faster than a tiger. Well, yeah, but I can run faster than you and that's all I need to do. So to get away from the tiger. so that, sorry, that's a dad joke, but the point is, is that your brain is designed. To do basically two things, which is your survival and your procreation and the rest of your life is just icing on the cake. You're just wired to survive and, and procreate. And, and so the other part of your brain, which is in the evolutionary terms and is much younger that we're interested in is the prefrontal cortex at the front of your brain. And the prefrontal cortex is such an interesting area because if you like, if you are a student who are probably the biggest body of procrastinators. That we can think of in the world until you're 25, it's not fully formed. It's still developing. Whereas the limbic system is there from birth, fully formed within very short space of time. I don't know. I don't know the science exactly, but it's there because you have to survive. Everything's about survival, and that's where the procrastination comes from because the flight, fight or freeze, they're all driven by what I call threat modality. When you're in threat modality, you don't feel very productive. You just feel like you need to get away from something or someone or something. So in the old days, it would be you wanna get away from something that wants to eat you for its lunch. And these days you want to get away from the news, politics, bills, figures in your books that don't add up. New tax rules, tax returns, you know, all of that stuff that stresses you out. It's induced threat modality, and your brain can't tell the difference. In, in a superficial way between a tiger that wants you for lunch and someone and your landlord trying to evict you, you've just got news. Your landlord's gonna evict you, you freeze. It's like, oh, what do I, what am I gonna do? And then you go into procrastination and eventually you, you know, we all have coping mechanisms, but that's where it stems from. Now some people have better coping mechanisms than others, and not all of us procrastinate. The research shows that about 95% of people will own up to being procrastinated at some time. It's not a big deal. We all procrastinate. Sometimes you, you may know someone that procrastinates about, I'll do the dishes later. You know what, does it matter? Not really. No. It might matter to somebody else if it annoys them, but it's not gonna change your life. Whereas of the 95% who went up to procrastinating, sometimes one in five of those, so about 20% of the popula population. Own up to being chronic procrastinators, and that's life changing. That's damaging stuff. And that's, that's what I realized I struggled with. And so it's all about these reward modalities and threat modalities. And what I put into the book was first you need to understand them. So the first part of the book is all about understanding, because I believe in teaching people to fish, not giving them the fish because. If you catch procrastination and it's to, and it's like a week from now, a month from now, a year from now, you are thinking, oh gee, if only I hadn't procrastinated, this would've been finished by now. Well, there's an infinite supply of money 'cause we print money, but you can't get back time. There's a finite amount of time in your life and if you're looking back and going, oh gee, I wish I hadn't procrastinated, it's too late. Whereas if you are aware, you are procrastinating right now. Hello. You can do something about it. So if you under and, and if you understand why, then you can go to the second part of the book, which is all about strategies. And I put like a pick a mix section in there of strategies because we're all different and no two strategies work for the same people in the same way, at the same time. So I've picked and chosen the best ones I could find and that I judged to be the best and that the receipt, the research showed to be the best. Then the final section is the one that I find when you're studying procrastination. When you look online and look through the search engines at it, it's often missing, which is momentum. There's plenty of ideas about how to get going, but how do you keep it up? That's why I'm a momentum formula. I call it Do it today, profit tomorrow, and repeat. The repeat being the hardest thing I've got behind me. I've got a cupboard full of planners, all sorts of weird, wonderful and wacky planners. The most incredible planners. I love them. All of them, but they're in a cupboard for a reason. And that's because they all worked for a while and then they stopped working and I don't know why. I guess I procrastinated about them. I got bored with them. The momentum dried up and that I realized was a problem. And so in the third part, I cover two things. I cover the momentum strategies. There are things you can do to grow your own momentum. A lot of things. The book is actually mostly about self-actualization. You, you read the book and it will help you self-actualize. But the bit that I realized that was missing and the bit that made my coaching effective is accountability. External accountability.'cause if you think about it, we can all create fantastic environments to work in when we work for ourselves. I've got a nice coffee machine, nice view for my window, live in a nice part of the world, got a nice broad bank connection. Fingers crossed it stays up today. You know, all of that nice big screen. I'm, my hours are reasonably flexible around what I do. The one thing I can't recreate is a boss. See, when I get up in the morning and I look in the mirror, it's the boss looking back. He's my boss, but he is a lunatic and he doesn't always listen to me. You know? So sometimes I'm, I can get into real trouble with him because he lets me off. Now, some people who are very good at internal accountability, their bosses are quite strict, and whenever I meet those people, I always lean in and say, tell me more. I wanna pick your brain. How are you doing that? But for someone like me, it's quite a struggle. It's quite a struggle sometimes. And so, but external accountability I realized was like, oh, that's the one thing that I can do where I can actually add value so that for the few people that want it, it won't be all, everyone that reason but won't want it. And I hope not. I've, I've hope I've set them up so they don't need it. Even if they come on board as a client, I, we work to, well, is there an end game here?'cause I don't want 'em to become dependent on me. I want 'em to be self-actualized. But I am a prime example of someone that's always struggled with the momentum side that can do anything for, you know, for a while. We all can. But getting up the momentum and keeping it up, that was always a challenge. Always difficult. What do you think is, a big driver of that? Because I, I can relate to that. I'm one of those people that I'll start something new all the time. I'll be like, that seems fun, let's do that. But keeping it going is, difficult with a lot of things. But there's some things that, I am. You know, better at being consistent with, and so as you're talking about it, I'm like, okay, so how, like what makes that a thing that I'm able to continue with? But I don't know if it's still, even in those situations, it's not always like continuing at the same momentum. Even like there will be times where I completely drop something, but then I pick it back up again. And like, then things will fizzle out. But then I just continue to, like, I have a whole like a mantra of like, just beginning again. Like that's just the constant, like let's just begin again. Yes. Been there. Got the T-shirt. Yeah. Do I know it very well. Know it very well. Practice that daily. In fact, beginning again, where was I this morning? Oh, I can't remember. I'll start again. Okay. So, yeah, good question. And I'm gonna answer it really by telling you. I'm gonna give you what I call the crown jewels. I can't give you the literal crown jewels. The king still needs them in our country, and you're getting a king over in America, so, so maybe they'll want to make their own soon. But what I can give you is the crown jewels of my book, which is the inner productivity team. And if I share that with you, I'm kind of explaining to you the answer to your question. Well, first of all, I need to put down an um, what I would call an overarching question. If you're not passionate about what you are doing, that's when procrastination gets in. And we can't be passionate about everything that we are doing. We can't, sometimes things just have to get done. So another thing that kicks in then, and I meant we talk about this in the book, is urgency. But urgency as a driver really sucks. You know, if you think about a student. Who's got like three months to do a thesis or, or an essay. I mean, I was a student not very long ago, so I do, I can relate to this. Oh, right, okay. So you start off with a plan and you go, all right, week one, I'm gonna do this. Week two, I'm gonna do that. Week three, I'm gonna do that. Week four, I'm gonna do that. I've got 12 weeks, week 11 and a half, how much have I done? None of it. Ah, panic. Right? And then it's like, you get it, you try and get it done, but you don't really have the time to do it justice and you wish to goodness. You could start again and you know, you know, if you did start again, you'd still leave it another 11 and a half weeks. Right? And that's because urgency. If if urgency is missing, then you. You just, people are not very good judge of time. If it's something that's gotta be done today or tomorrow, by the end of the week, we can get our heads around that. But if it's further out than that, that's when accountability coaching really comes in.'cause we help you fix with chunk down goals, smaller targets that we to, to against, so that the big target, which is a long way away and has consequences if you don't hit it. You can set up some consequences along the way, but I digress. In the meantime, how do you get more productive in a productivity team? The crown jewels. So inside, let's go back. Inside your brain, you know, when you are being productive, there are three neurotransmitters present. Now, I dunno about you, but my eyes are already glazing over at the word neurotransmitter. I'm, I'm not a scientist, right? So, but I, I had to study this at least at a superficial level, and that, and it is very superficial. I don't claim to be an expert on neuropsychology, neuroscience or, or psychology, but here's what I found. You need to be fully in your groove, as I call it, like the Madonna song. Let's get into the groove. I call it getting into the groove and to get the needle into the groove. You need dopamine. Most people have heard of dopamine. It's the fun. It's the fun neurotransmitter. It's the when you go on a rollercoaster, woo. Hey, when you're scrolling through your phone, you know, it's like you're getting a dopamine hit from that. When you're watching your favorite TV show, when you're reading your favorite book, when you're doing things you are enjoying, it's all about the dopamine, and that's why you will keep doing them. And if you're not enjoying it in your work, then it's a problem. Okay?'cause that's when the passion disappears. And so I don't use the word dopamine, although it is memorable, but I, of the three, it's the most memorable. I call it the conductor because the conductor who resides in the prefrontal cortex is the conductor of an orchestra of musical instruments. And without the conductor, there's just a cacophony of terrible sound Every, nothing works. You can't bring all the desperate parts together. The conductor. Orchestrates everything, brings it together, makes it beautiful, and you make music with what you are doing. Right? And the conductor is only in the building if the limbic system is calm and not feeling threatened. Right. You've got, okay. Because the conductor is not as strong as the limbic system because in the limbic system we have a little thing that, well, not a little thing, a big thing that I call your warrior. Your warrior comes out when, when you get another neurotransmitter, called cortisol, and that is when that comes out, it floods your body, it shuts everything down except that flight, fight, or freeze response, and it's wonderful. It saves your life over and over again. So you don't really need it very often these days unless you are genuinely running away from a tiger. Right, but it's still there and it still serves a purpose. And there will be times in everybody's lives when they need it. It's still highly relevant, but you don't need it when you're being productive because it locks the conductor out. Your rational thinking side, the thing that says, I know what I gotta get done today. Mm-hmm. Not if the warriors there. The warrior's there. Yeah, let's go fight. Let's go fight. Right. They're just, that's all they want to do. Right? Because that's their job. But what you do need is what I call the fun sized warrior, little baby warrior. Fun sized like the chocolate bars in your lunchbox. And that's because the fun sized warrior produces noradrenaline. Noradrenaline as in adrenaline, Nora adrenaline, it's called. And you just need a little bit of anxiety, a little tiny bit of stress, a fun sized amount, so that you'll metaphorically and maybe literally sitting on the edge of your seat, oh, I'm excited about this. I gotta get this done. If I don't get this done, I'm gonna get in trouble with my coach. Or if I don't get this done, I won't be able to XY, Z at the end of the day, and I wanna really do that right Just a little bit. But it's very important that you have that. Edge just gives you that edge. And the final of the three of the inner productivity team is called, it's called Acetacholine. You hear me on now? IMA lot, but I always like, oh, it isn't not a long word and I never remember. It's scientific. But Acetacholine is an interesting one if you think about it. I dunno about you, but if were you ever a child, I think I remember, you probably remember it sooner than I do, but quicker. Not as far back as I did, but I remember being a child. But if you've had children, if you've got children on your own, you notice that they're really, really good at focusing. Sure. You know, if they've got gas, their focus will shift really fast. Ah, I've got gas, I've got gas. I need to sort this out. And they may not be able to verbalize that, but my goodness, you know what's going on. If you're a, if you're a mum or a dad. Well, but the other side of it is my kids, when they were little, I would put a video on of what their favorite movie and they could watch it a hundred times and not get bored. Right. Or I could give them one toy, or I could give them the box that the toy came in on Christmas day and they'll play with the box, not the toy that costs hundreds. They'll play with the bottle tens, they'll play with the box for hours on end. Totally focused. And that's because acidity, coline is the neurotransmitter that creates focus. And children need it in buckets, bucket loads, because they have to learn to talk. They have to learn to walk, they have to learn. All the skill sets they need to survive. They're in a terrible hurry to do it because it's essential, because they're highly vulnerable and it still takes years. But there's no other point in your life when you learn so much, so quickly as when you're a child. And that's the acidy. Coline, which damnit when you're an adult, is not naturally present in our brains. It's gone Interesting. now. Fortunately, our brains are very sophisticated and you can bring it back, you can manufacture it and you don't need a little Without without caffeine. Absolutely. Although I'm a fan of caffeine. But you can, you can bring it back. Yeah. It's caffeine does. Yeah. It's a neurotransmitter, you know, so, or it latches onto them, so Yeah, absolutely. But, You can bring it back and I, I don't know how it works biologically. I don't care how it works biologically, all I know is I know when acid coline is in the building. Because when I look at my watch and I've been working and I think, oh gosh, you know, I've got so much to do today. I've only been, I've only done five minutes work, and I look at my watch, I've been here two hours. Wow. That time flew. That's because I was focused. When you're focused, you are in the groove, and when you are focused and the conductor is present, directing your work, you're in the groove. And when you are focused and you're feeling a little bit, I've gotta get this done, I gotta get this done. A little bit stressed, not too much, not too little. The James Clear calls it the Goldilocks principle. Not too much, not too little, just enough. When you're there, when all three of those things are present, you will be productive. And it's a skill. You have to learn the skill, how to get, you need to find the strategies that will get you into the groove. That's what my book is all about. Hmm. Wow. I know one of my strategies is definitely a cup, cup of cups of coffee. Mine too. Mine too. It I did try to quit caffeine for a while and it's just, I had a really hard time focusing. Yeah. And yeah. Okay. And I, I mean, I'm, I'm not gonna have a go 'cause I love my coffee. I'm a coffee snob. And, uh, I can't, I love, that's how I start my day. I shouldn't, they tell me it's bad for me, but everything's bad for you. Breathing in is bad for you. So I have a coffee too. I love it. and it does, it does, it does. You see, that's the other thing is, that's why, I would say, when you look at your needs, which is I have a section in my book on the six human needs, which, uh, I, I learned from Tony, who in turn learned from Abraham Maslow going right back. and I talk about how that dopamine fix you can get, do, you can get all your needs met positively, so you can get it by good, clean living, healthy eating well, you can get it negatively. Bye. Pizzas and coffee, although don't eat too many pizzas 'cause that it will eventually affect your health and then you'll feel rubbish and then you will struggle with your pro productivity. But yeah, I'm with you on the coffee. So one of the things that mentioned was that. gotta have passion and have fun with things, but there's still things that we have to get, like the, our whole, you know, job isn't always sunshine and rainbows, so. I know for like this industry bookkeeping, we have a lot of repetitive tasks, and deadlines, which as you were talking about that like little bit of anxiety. We don't have bosses, but we have clients and we have deadlines that we've committed to. So that's always been a big driver for me of getting things done. But I will still. Procrastinate till almost the last possible moment because unfortunately when I did that in school, I always had really good results. So I was not motivated to change my strategy. Um, but. There have been, you know, as the businesses have grown, and this is what I talk to my students about as well and my listeners, is when it's not just you anymore and you've got a team, you have to stagger deadlines. And you can no longer wait till the last possible moment because you're affecting other people's, jobs and things like that. So what is your, advice for anyone listening that is like, yeah, I still, I'm still really struggling with. Doing the repetitive, mundane tasks that I don't really enjoy. or maybe it's not the repetitive, mundane tasks, maybe it's like the marketing tasks that they don't enjoy. Yeah. Uh, did, do you you gotta admit it, you're a bookkeeper. You love repetitive tasks. I know bookkeepers. Yeah, exactly. Um, so. what are some of your, like, give us one strategy that might work for somebody when, when they're dealing with, sure. Alright, I'll, I'll try and be succinct is what you're saying. You know, you're waffling on too much, right? I get you. I hear you. I hear the underlying question and that's fine. I'm not offended, so, so yeah. Well, I actually will mention a couple of things in answer you, you said a lot of things there. We don't tend to procrastinate when we've got responsibility to our clients because we're accountable to them. If we let them down, we, we've let them down. And that's, that has serious consequences. That's a pain driver. Okay., And I've mentioned it deliberately because the other side of the coin is, well, what's a reward driver? What's a pleasure driver? So if you've got like chores that are. You've just gotta do them., And you don't want to do the last minute thing because then you are worried that you, when you're not allowed to make mistakes, when you're a bookkeeper, it's not an option. Okay? So you've gotta do the job well, and then if you've left it to the last minute, that's a real fear. That's a real, real worry. And your, your business and your reputation would struggle, I know. So you don't do that. But nevertheless, you will still leave things perhaps longer than you wanted to. So what I do is IS when I, when I'm working with my clients and what I do for myself is I tie the boring tasks into rewards or sometimes into pain. So it depends on the mindset of the person and how they, what, what motivates them is the word we're looking for enough. So taking something off somebody off yourself. I won't get this if I don't do that. Or I will get this if I do do that. Some people work one way, some people work. The other I, I'll be honest with you, most people tend to gravitate towards the pain side because we, we live in a world where painful things tends to be a bigger driver of getting us to get off our backsides and do things. But equally, the reward thing's fun. So I know, for example, when I talk to someone who's a natural internal accountability person who's like, you know, I was talking to one the other day, what have you been doing? Oh, I've written a book on procrastination and productivity, you know, helping people get over procrastination. And she said, do people do that? Really? And she was a very successful businesswoman. And I said, and I was talking and I was picking her brain and I knew what she, some of what she was gonna say, but I'm always interested to hear how the, what the mechanisms are. And she said, oh, I just tell myself until you get this done. You can't play right. Whatever the playing is, you know, whether it's spending time with her kids or going out for a drink with her partner or whatever it is. I don't get to do the fun stuff until I've done this. Or the other side of it is, and that's a very powerful in touch and she's very disciplined about that. But someone like me is like, ah, dammit, I'm gonna go and play with the kids. I reward myself now. Right. And so you have to get disciplined about it because that is not a good strategy. It's fun to play with the kids, but then the things get left right. So, yeah, you gotta, so what we talk about when I'm working with clients, and I do it for myself as well, is like, when I do this, I get that right? And so for me, like a big thing for me like is, uh. I like, you know, time off at the weekend if I don't do this today. Well, I know it's a matter of fact that I'm not gonna have much time off at the weekend, and that's very, very motivational for me because I am committed to getting the work done. But I realize if I procrastinate and waste time or something else, waste my time. I've had a lot of my time wasted today by urgent action. That wasn't of my doing. I'm like, oh, you know, I can see my reward slipping away. And I'm like, no, I'm gonna double down and I'm gonna get there somehow. Right? So, yeah, sometimes if, so, if the chore is drag a drag and you, and it's a chore and you don't want to get it done, you actually have two options. One is the, what I've said, set yourself up for reward or more pain if you don't get it done. And the other one is, can you leverage it out? Can you delegate it to somebody else? That's a common one. That's not always an option. but, but often it is, There was something you said a moment ago, and I it. Popped a question into my head and now it's left me, but maybe it'll come back to me. yeah, it's, it is end and fried brain. Sorry about that. Yeah. It's contagious. I just came off of a week vacation. Um, oh, that might be actually it. Like how do you, I know there's like a lot of, a lot of, stuff. People, words floating around, people saying things like, balancing, you know, living for today. And then like that whole, the whole adage of like, the work will be here tomorrow. That's like the most unhelpful thing to say to a procrastinator. So what do you say to that? I, I, I, I ask, you said what you're alluding to there is 2019. Oh, you know, it was, I procrastinated. I've been doing that since I was a teenager. And never owning up to it. And one of the hardest battles I have with myself and now with when I meet other people is I get someone like my friend the other day, oh, people procrastinate. They do that, that's fine. And they're very successful business person. But you get other people like, I don't think I suffer from procrastinate. I don't think it is that, and I try, when I was writing the book, I was like, you know, some people, I keep talking about procrastinators, but not everybody owns it. So I would say it's kind of like, you know, the 12 step program. I've never, I don't drink, so it's not, I don't know much about it and wouldn't claim to know much about it. But I believe the first thing is you have to own it. You have to say, you know, I've got a problem and I wouldn't advocate a 12 step program for procrastination. I don't think it's that serious, or, or anything like that, of a challenge, but it is life changing. In the same way for sure. and you have to own it. You have to own up to it. So it is, there is, I think, I think I'm right in saying that's the first step is, you know, yes, I'm an alcoholic. Okay, fine. I'll leave that there 'cause I don't want to talk about something I know nothing about. But yes, I'm a procrastinator is a really big step and you don't have to own it because I actually do think, and I mentioned this in the book, it never goes away. You know, I am a procrastinator. I can procrastinate my life away every day. I still have to deal with it every single day. I still catch myself procrastinating. I've got better since writing the book, dealing with it, but I'm aware I'm still susceptible to it, and I do find myself caught in it sometimes. And I have better mechanisms for dealing with that. I have a more flexible diary. I, you know, I, I schedule around it a little bit to, for the times that I slip, but the first step is recognizing it's there in the first place. The other thing too is that like, like I said before, a lot of us haven't necessarily, suffered as negative of consequences for being a procrastinator. Like I'm the type of person that, like, I, I have a deadline. I know that I'm gonna hit it because if I have to pull an all-nighter before it, I will. But like you were saying before, it might not be to the quality that you wanted, and then The negative ramifications of that is like, then the rest of the week you're trying to catch up on sleep and so it's affecting everything, you know, it trickles down. So just really recognizing those actual consequences that you might not have been recognizing before. So like, admit that you are procrastinating even though you're still successful. and then looking at what were actually the negative consequences. Of that procrastination. it's very interesting because procrastinators are still productive people. It's not like you're not productive, it's not, you know what I Yeah, That's going right back to the beginning. They're not necessarily, they're not lazy. They want to be productive. And they're capable They're capable of it. The distinction I would make then, I, I guess what I would suggest to you is this, right? So, there's a lot talking of one of the research again, there was a paper written in 2007 on the effects of goal setting. You'll be surprised how little work's been done into goal setting until around that period. And, I was very surprised actually, and the value of it, and I'm, I'm not a great advocate of goal setting. Um, I, I, when I work with the clients, we talk about chunking things down and milestone goals, but I don't actually believe in setting the be all and end all of goal setting because. they discovered when they did the research, they discovered that the act of setting up a goal, you know, the smart goal, specific, measurable, and all of that stuff, act, it sets up in your mind an obligation and obligations are stressful, and who comes out when you are too stressed, your big warrior. So you procrastinate. So you don't want it. So you actually, ironically, your big goals, your big things that you want to get done don't happen because you, you actually goal set that you wanted them to. You created an obligation. So I talk in my book about creating a personal life vision. So if like, which, and I talk about the distinction being that it might be achieved by many goals, many, many goals being achieved. So I said it like 15 years into the future 'cause that's so far away. For most of us, it's like, okay, I can't restrict myself into thinking, oh, I won't be able to get that done. You can do a lot in 15 years. Most people underestimate what they can do. Most people overestimate what they can get done in a year and underestimate what they can do in five years, right? So for 15 years is great. So, but the distinction being is that when you have a clear vision and you get up in the morning and your vision is how you see yourself being 5, 10, 15 years from now, and the thing you gotta do today. It's completely related to that. And yet unrelatable, it's such a tiny little thing you gotta get done and yet you won't achieve that big goal. It's a lot more motivating. So I was explaining about in 2007, they, they did some research into goal setting and they discovered that if you, they took their sample group and they said, right, some of you are gonna be set the task. You've got one month to achieve whatever goals you set yourself. And that group achieved 43% of their goal. Then the top tier group they had, they added various things, including in the last two levels, higher and higher levels of external accountability. When they got to the top level, what they found was the group in Group five who had full accountability, they were getting emails, they had to report back, they had to send reports, they had progress reports. They, and they were accountable and they had to explain to their external coach what they were doing and how they and, and what they were achieving. They achieved 33% more. Productivity than the, than the baseline group who without any help at all. After one month, which isn't a long time, we can all do things for a month. 43% of those said they'd either achieve their goals or well on their way to making them. The higher group is 33% more. And I asked the question, Serena, what could you achieve? What would it mean to you if you could achieve 33% more every single month of the year that you are working professionally? What would that mean to your, your bottom line? How much more profit would that make? How much more, turnover would that create? And by the way, I don't believe any of that matters, but what matters is, is what you spend it on. What does that do for your lifestyle? If you've got 33% more income, more profit, How much more fabulous could your vacations be? How many more vacations could you have? much sooner can you retire? How much sooner can you retire right when you start? I, I, there's a, there's an infinite supply of money in the world, but we don't need money. We need lifestyle choices. We need lifestyle freedom. And when you are turning over more and your business works and you're profiting more, I. You can get there quicker. And if you think about it, if you achieve 33% more than you're doing now every single month of the year, that's an exponential growth. A figure is phenomenal. You are a mathematician. You'll understand that 33% times 12 exponentially is thousands of percent. I'm not suggesting to anybody that they would achieve that, but what if it were just was 33%? What if it was 20% more? What if it was 10% more? You understand better than most people 'cause of your maths. That even 1% more is better than nothing because compound interest, the exponential growth. And so that's the difference. That's that, that, that's where I'm coming from with that. that's powerful. So what you're saying is everyone needs an accountability No. Everyone needs some sort of accountability though. Just as you were talking about it, I was, you know, like if you have a team and you're just letting them kind of do, which I'm guilty of this because I have very self-motivated team, but we still have a weekly team meeting accountability check-in of like, okay, give us status absolutely. Well, it would be very self-serving of me to say that, so of course I'm not going to say that. Guess I'm not about self-serving. But what I will say is that, yeah, everybody needs levels of accountability. Now you can have accountability buddies. In your case, your team have a boss, so they are, they're doing okay. They probably don't have to worry about, procrastination as much as the boss does because the boss doesn't have a boss, but you are accountable to them. You've promised you've made commitments to them as well as they've made commitments to you. You can, you can simulate accountability with commitments, made commitments given. That's a very good one. I mean, I remember years ago, um, who was the planner? The, it slipped from my mind then, but there's a planner where that's what you record every day. Commitments made commitments given that was a very good accountability system. the guy who wrote, the Seven Habits of Effective People, Stephen Covey and his planner was all about that, in my cupboard with all the other planners. Great. Love it. Love the love the theory, but it didn't last forever. but you can have accountability buddies, people where you just swap accountability. There's a time cost because you're having to be their buddy as well as them being your buddy. So there's a time cost, and they may or may not be good at what they do. They might suck at it. They might say, oh, Serena, so you didn't hit your target this week. Well, you are really some square word at that, aren't you? And you're like, oh, great. I feel terrific now. That's not inspiring. That's not motivational. A coach, a good coach, if you pick the right coach and it has to be the right coach for you and your personality, you have to like each other. They won't do that 'cause they're trained. They're trained not to get, not to do you down. They're trying to lift you up. Whereas accountability buddies is a little bit of a crapshoot. You're not sure what you're gonna get, but it works. I've had many over the years, and actually all of them in the end fell apart, ended up in my metaphorical cupboard behind me for one reason or another. So, you know, I'm not gonna say everybody needs it. A lot of people, they just need the skills, the, the strategies and it's enough to get them moving other people. Yeah, I mean, I would say, the way I talk about it, in Britain, we talk about, it's a belt and braces approach. You know, you wear a belt and you wear braces to hold, you call them pants, I think we call them trousers, to hold your trousers up, right? So you can hold your own trousers up, but a belt and, but if you use a belt, that's fine. And if you use braces, you brought in an accountability coach to make doubly sure that they're gonna stay up. That's all I'm saying really is yeah, if you, if you reach the point where you just absolutely, positively must achieve your targets, you must hit your goals. You want to, you need to then, yeah, you should think about getting accountability into your life. But in some form, I wouldn't say everybody needs it, I'd say, but everybody could benefit from it. Absolutely. Okay. I have, a couple more questions for you. So what is something that you've done recently, a result that you've gotten recently by following your own methodology? Oh gosh. Done. I've built this business in, in the, oh, finishing the book. Really? I mean, how many times have I said to people over the years, what they, what are you doing, Robin? He says, oh, I'm writing a book about procrastination. And they say, oh, yeah, I thought about doing that, but then I, you know, then I, I didn't, you know, I'm still thinking about it. I'll do it tomorrow. Oh, ha ha ha ha. Not heard that one before I finished it. and I have a, you know, a marketing strategy. I've completed my system. I think my biggest achievement really is one of self personal growth in that I still think of myself as a chronic procrastinator. I can still catch myself doing it, but I do know how to deal with it now, and it doesn't dominate my life anymore, but it's there. And so, so in, in business terms. It's, I keep doing it and I was, I'm, I'm gonna be, I might upset your listeners now. I don't do it on purpose. but it is something in my book, which is, a saying that keeps myself to keep myself going and, and actually it perhaps epitomizes is as a, is the best answer I can give you to the question, which is about keeping going. During World War ii, Winston Churchill, who famous for a lot of things. Pearl Harbor had just happened, which obviously historically brought the Americans into the war, but in the Pacific they had also caused massive damage out in the Pacific to British warships. There was a huge loss of life. It was devastating, as was Pearl Harbor. On the plus side. Churchill was thinking, okay, now the Americans have come to the war and the downside, it's like, I hope it's not too late, and we've just suffered huge losses as well. And it was, it was a really dark days for both countries. And the allies and Churchill just said, right, nevermind KBO, he said, and for the rest of the war, people who had heard him say whenever there was bad news or whenever he was, that things were getting too much, too overwhelming KBO. And they were like, okay, well the equivalent of that today are other signs that say keep calm and carry on. I mean, you may have seen those. They weren't, they didn't exist in the war. They, they're complete mythology, but KBO did, and perhaps the reason it now says keep calm and carry on is because K B's a little bit rude. It's keep, I hope you, I hope you don't mind, I hope you can say it. Keep buggering on. Right. Whereas Churchill say, keep buggering on. Right. Because at its, and, and, and actually there's value in that. It being a, a very slightly a, a sweary word, just a little bit not, not a bad one really, because it's emotional. Keep calm and carry on. Just feels limp like a lettuce leaf. Yeah. But keep, keep buggering on. I won't say it again, but I have just that last time, I just, like, when I get stuck, I just like, oh, that's bad news. You know, my big warriors come out KBO. It's an, it's an it be. It has a sense of grit And it becomes an anchor becomes an anchor. That a, an anchor in, in the sense of what it engages me with a feeling of, right. Let's get on with it. That kind of anchor, not an anchor that drags you down. That's a different kind of anchor. Awesome. Okay. My next and last question. Well, my next two last question 'cause I do have one more question after this. so this podcast is for bookkeepers and accountants, and when I have other business owners on that are not bookkeepers or accountants, I like to ask them, what is something if you have a bookkeeper or if. You know, you don't, and you wish you did. What would be something that your a bookkeeper could do that would, help move the needle or make a difference in how you run your business? Well, that comes back to a point I'm making earlier about leveraging out or delegating out things that you don't need to do. The value of a bookkeeper is, you know, I know how to do books. I know how to read accounts. But I don't dig it. I don't want to, it doesn't float my boat. I'm not passionate about it. And I, I know a few bookkeepers and they really love numbers. You guys, you love numbers. And I, I mean, I'm a guy, I'll quote fantastic numbers, but adding up columns and all of that stuff, it doesn't do it for me. And I actually getting quite stressed, just thinking about when I had my gift shops and I used to do, we, in the UK purchase tax is called VAT. And the, and the. Quarter of the VAT returns. That was probably the biggest thing I procrastinated about ever. I hated doing those. So leveraging it out, delegating it out. The va look, the, the beauty of a bookkeeper, they are an essential part of your business. You cannot do business unless you keep proper accounts because whether you like it or not, the tax person, the tax man will put you outta business if you haven't reported your, your business properly. And the other side of it is, of course, they tell you what's working and what's not working. I don't believe in letting the accountant run my business, but reporting my business. I would rather, that they did that than I did. At the moment, I don't have one. Uh, maybe we can talk afterwards, but I, but, but I know that when I get to a certain size of the business, I, it's something I will do. I always call it leveraging out rather than delegating. The distinction I make is when you leverage something out, you don't give up responsibility for it. Just in case they let you down. You keep tabs on it. Accountability again. Yeah, I love that. and that's always helpful to hear a business owner and h how their perspective of it, because a lot of, a lot of my listeners do feel like, how do we communicate our value to these people that, you know, seem like they don't care? And there are gonna be clients out there that don't care that much and they're not the right client for hiring a bookkeeper, obviously. But I like to ask this question because I want people to know that there are, people do value bookkeeping yeah, I, I value bookkeepers too. I can't think of any bookkeeper I've ever met that I didn't like. You're nice people. I'm not making that up. I genuinely, I did an accountant's course when I was at college in, in my teens, I. Everyone was lovely and, and I, that's why I know how much you love numbers, but yeah, nice people. All right. Final question. Where can our listener go to connect with you and grab a copy of your book called Get Results Ology? I don't know if we mentioned the title of it, I don't believe we did the. will also be linked in the show notes. So, so, okay, so the book is called Get Results Ology, the Science of Getting It Done. Oh, or sorry, the Science of Getting Stuff Done, I should say. and so it is a, serious book. It's written in plain English. It communicates the message. it's something you can dive into and I, I highly recommend that you read it. and I want you, you, if you go on Amazon, you can buy it, as a print or you can buy it as a Kindle. But I don't want to do, make you do that. I don't expect you to part with your money. I'm happy to give it to you free in its entirety as a PDF, no strings attached. Um, you can, you can download it, from a, a link I'm about to give you, I wanna get this technology out there. And so you can go to, my website. I've got a special link for it. My, my main website is called, believe It or Not, get results ology.com. you can find it there, but another way to find it that's really quick is really useful tips.com. Now, really useful tips, as in I really mean it. You can have it for nothing. It's useful as I hope you do find it useful and it's full of tips. Really useful tips.com and um, all I ask is that when you get it, open it up, start reading it, and in the first chapter you'll find at the end of the chapter, I ask you to sign a pledge to say that you're going to follow through. And I'm an accountability coach after all. So I'm saying, come on, follow through, do it, and then email me your pledge. And I'm not being funny about it. I'm only just saying, really, it's my way of saying, feel free to get in touch, drop me a line, I read all the emails I get and I reply and it'd be lovely to hear from you and you can just, you know, if you wanna do that, do it. It's not compulsory. but yeah, so there's that. And as an extra bonus as well, if you don't want the book, um, because you're busy. Doing your books 'cause I know it's a very big and time consuming job. I have an alternative, which is called my Five Day Challenge, and you can get that from skyrocket your productivity challenge.com. That's also free. Five videos, 10 minutes a day free, and it's based on the book. Awesome. Thank you so much for all those wonderful resources. So make sure you all go get your copy of the book. I have mine, I'm working through it. Um, I wish you had an audible version. There is an audible version. Oh, it's not, well, it's not, there's an audio version. okay, there's an audio Yes. That is actually available when you, when you get the free one. That is a, that is something you could purchase. I, I, I have that, but, but it's optional. You can get the book for free Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Robin for joining me on my podcast. It's always a pleasure to chat with you. and with you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a delight and as you can tell, I am English 'cause I can talk for England. Wonderful. All right. You have a wonderful, hopefully the rest of your day is sunshiny. Yes, what's left of it? It's evening now, but it is still very sunshiny. But thank you very much. You have a great day too. Bye.

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