The most common problems freelancers have?
They spend their whole day pretending to work.
It might not feel like pretending.
You may work long hard hours, b urning the candle at both ends.
but if you spend your whole day, every day, doing admin and fulfilment,
then you don’t have a business,
you have a job.
I’d bet my left nut that right now you have an important tasks that’s been lurking at the top of your todo list since 2024.
It’s been there so long it’s started growing mould.
You know it’s your most important thing right now,
that tackling it would make your whole life easier
yet somehow it hits 5pm at the end of yet another day and somehow it’s passed you by?
We all struggle to take on the tasks we know we should do.
We procrastinate by working on what is easy, what is known.
Emails, admin, and scrolling social media.
There are a lot of temptations.
For 10 years I would set grand goals, with specific targets (usually monetary),
inspired by figures from my latest favourite guru on Instagram.
The modern obsession with grand goal setting is misleading and harmful.
Setting goals and targets without action is just wishful thinking.
Setting grand, unrealistic goals didn’t help me change my life,
in fact, most of the time I failed to even start them.
If I started them, I never saw them through.
Inevitably I’d fail to meet my impossibly high standards, and then feel like sh💩t.
The reason we fail to start?
We fail to start because ➡️ Lack of clarity.
When a goal is too big.
It’s overwhelming ➡️ We don’t know how to get there ➡️ we feel uncertain ➡️ Uncertainty is uncomfortable.
So we take the path of least resistance.
Instead, we procrastinate with simple, clear, low value tasks.
The stuff we know how to do:
Emails, admin, firefighting.
The reason we fail to finish?
We fail to finish because ➡️ Lack of consistency.
When we don’t have a system to consistently take action,
Regularity is boring ➡️ Our brains crave novelty ➡️ we act piecemeal or ,don’t take regular action,
So we get distracted by other tasks,
or find new goals to chase.
Our efforts don’t have time to have any effect on our lives.
What changed things for me was when I stopped setting grand goals,
and started setting myself smaller projects instead.
Goals vs Projects
First, stop thinking of goals.
Start thinking of them as projects.
🎯 Goals are something you think about
📂 Projects are something you DO
🎯 Goals are absolute
📂 Projects are relative
🎯 Goals have an endpoint
📂 Projects are ongoing and open ended
🎯 Goals have a timeline
📂 Projects are self paced
🎯 Goals are something you aim for
📂 Projects are something you work on
Grand Goals get me going.
I’m always pumped up about taking them on…
But when the enthusiasm wears off,
I get bored, distracted and seek some new goal to chase.
Projects don’t get my heart pumping,
but projects keep me chipping away at the boring things day after day,
Until everyday actions compound into exceptional results.
Well I have x6 secret weapons I use to take on my most important tasks every day.
6 tools to get things done
Over the years I’ve built an arsenal of secret weapons I use to help me focus my attention and get important projects done.
You see, without focus we are more likely to be captives of distraction,
more likely to be exploited by anyone with something to sell,
more likely to be distracted from important work by entertainment.
So here’s 6 ways to “stick in”, to become the kind of person that sits down ni the morning, and gets important stuff done ticked off the list.
These tools will give you both clarity that you need to get started,
and consistency, to help you achieve your goals
How to do important stuff you don’t feel like doing
Time blocking
Have you heard of Parkinson’s Law?
Work expands to fill the time you give it.
It doesn’t matter how quickly you do your work, and how efficiently you work,
If you have more time, you’ll just work on things longer.
Which means every task you pick up should have an end time in mind.
Ideally organise your schedule in one hour blocks.
If you can’t finish the task in one hour, then you can use chunking to still make progress.
Chunking
Remember, we fail to start things because they seem to big to take on.
Break large, overwhelming tasks in your business into smaller, actionable parts.
Focusing on one chunk at a time makes the work feel more achievable and helps maintain clarity and energy.
You don’t have to design the best website in one go,
you only have to look at examples,
then tomorrow you can sketch a wireframe
the day after you can write the copy.
Then the next step
then the next step
then the next one.
All you have to do is start.
Build momentum
Anyone who has ever done a workout knows,
It’s much harder to start than to keep going.
The first step is always the hardest.
If you try to chase the end result, it seems so big you can’t take action.
It’s too tempting to skip out and do something less mentally challenging.
But the first step is usually a tiny action.
So if a task seems to big to take on,
figure out the smallest possible action it takes to get started,
you can use that to build momentum in a solo business.
that small win can build confidence and motivation, and before you know it, you’re in the zone, smashing out work and you haven’t even realised.
Bonuses
When I was 15 a had a paper round after school.
I’d leave the shop with my luminous yellow paper bag, heavy and laden with papers, the strap digging into my shoulder.
I can still remember it’s smell, of old rubber, ink and sweat.
But before I left the newsagents, I’d always pick up a pack of Opal Fruits, (now know as Starburst, if there’s any young guns reading this).
I’d ration that pack out over the whole run,
saving all the oranges and greens for last.
Attach a reward to completing a task or milestone.
These “bonuses” can be anything you enjoy;
a break, a treat, or leisure time
creating positive reinforcement to push through.
Gamification
We talked about what happens if tasks are too hard.
But what happens if they are too easy?
Humans are goal striving machines.
Goals make us work harder, increase focus and eliminate distractions.
They also make things more fun,
and when people are having fun, studies show they are more productive, more creative, and have enhanced performance.
If tasks are too easy we become bored and listless and our attention and even mood suffers.
I use gamification to turn tasks into a game by layering extra challenges, tracking progress, or competing with yourself.
Distraction
Most people will tell you how to avoid distraction.
They’ll tell you how to identify and minimize distractions in your work environment.
Use tools like website blockers, noise-cancelling headphones, or physical separation from interruptions to maintain focus and work efficiently.
But they won’t tell you distraction can be a hindrance or a a secret weapon.
Delivering papers doesn’t take much mental energy.
I didn’t have a mobile phone in those days, iPods hadn’t come out yet,
MP3 players were about the best you could get but I didn’t have one.
So I had to keep my mind occupied.
I used to occupy my mind by writing sci-fi stories in my head, forming little poetic lines and chapters,
Then rehearse until committed them to memory.
This kept my mind occupied from the monotony and meant my paper round flew by.
There are many tasks like this in later life that are necessary but just plain boring, which makes them harder to take on.
You can use distraction to take on all that stuff you’ve been putting off.
Do you have an important task lurking at the bottom of your todo list?
These 6 tools helped me become someone who “sticks in” and honour my responsibilities. If you want to go deeper on this, watch my “unstick yourself” masterclass for freelancers who just can’t help procrastinating. You can grab it below… that is ,if you don’t get distracted first! 😅
Take action on your Most important task using my goals ▶️ action framework.
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