How Can You Trick Your Mind?

My lizard brain is just a lizard. Which means I have the upper hand.

Yes, notice when I'm procrastinating. Yes, raise the stakes. Yes, reflect on what's happening and what happened. But also...just outsmart the damned lizard.

• Problem #1 - All of my tasks and projects are actionable and have due dates - I know how to break a big thing into lots of sequential sub-things that are clear and actionable. But I only respect the final end date (which is usually public and has risk involved), leading to all-nighters and last-minute drama while I attempt to do all 9,876,545,788 sub-tasks in one day.
• Trick #1 - Raise the stakes on my sub-task due dates. Schedule a webinar one week prior to giving the same talk at a large-scale speaking event. Tell my client (in writing) that I'll send him a quick video walk-through of my daily progress every day. Ask a respected mentor to review an upcoming writing piece before it goes live and commit to the day I'll send her the draft so she has plenty of time to review.
• Problem #2 - Procrastination is a self-fulfilling prophecy of nonsense and shame. I have internalized the "procrastinator" identity and I repeatedly prove myself right. Not helpful.
• Trick #2 - Visualization. This is a thing professional athletes do, I'm told. It's also one of those things that I'll admit, seems made up. Too good to be true. And yet...what do I have to lose? I am a "START NOW" person. I am a "PUSH THROUGH THE DISCOMFORT OF YUCKY TASKS" person. I am disciplined in not only the way I plan my tasks and projects, but in the way I execute them. I do what I say I will do. I do hard things, even when I don't feel like it.

Tracking my procrastination didn't help me to stop in the last seven days. (Although it really was interesting...more on that another time.) Feeling like crap and beating myself up about it didn't help me to stop in the last 30ish years. So it's time to get tricksy.