It’s OK to Say “I’ll Do It Tomorrow"

Okay, I'm gonna try and make a video that explains a kind of a controversial idea here Which is my defense of doing things tomorrow in personal productivity. We're always kind of told that you Tell yourself you're gonna do tomorrow and that's the big lie, right? So I'm gonna actually defend These this idea now, it's not what you think It's not because I'm telling you to be more compassionate to yourself or to go easier necessarily But there is a very very interesting thing that's happening around this Phenomenon where we tell ourselves look I'll do it tomorrow and in personal productivity. That's always presented as the big lie It's actually more helpful than a lot of the hustle culture stuff out there, but I want to Highlight what's going on here with this idea of doing things tomorrow And how to actually make it work for you So if we look at that there we could say Let's just look at it this way. Let's say Let's say this phase here. That's your That's today. We'll say okay, and this over here is tomorrow Let's label it there. This is tomorrow and this is today and you're here at the start of your day and Okay We'll say I'm making a commitment to start something here maybe we Don't show up for it. Okay at that point we Have the experience of failing to commit to it It might not even be that but it will be at some point. We have this intention of doing the task today and We say well, actually, you know what? I'm not gonna do that today Really look I'll do it tomorrow Which which does in a way look like it opens up this part of your day here for What I advocate for which is to reflect on Your actions or your failure to follow through and things but you're stepping away from the task. Okay, which is what I actually Recommend we do when we fail to show up for something, which is the idea in my new book But it looks as if we've deferred it here for the next day So people say okay, this is wrong, this is bad you shouldn't do that People will say it's because you know, the the message is that people say is That the big problem is we keep telling ourselves I'll Do it tomorrow This is the big lie that we're telling ourselves In my experience, this is the insight I have on all of this What's really happening here today Especially, you know in this phase here when we've told ourselves look I'll do it tomorrow I've asked many many people this question and it is this Okay, you you're telling yourself here. Maybe at this point. I'll do it tomorrow however what happens if a Sudden burst of motivation comes along at this point or At this point or at this point today What would you do if you really felt like taking action on that task? At any of the points in this day that you have written off and said you're not going to do it Would you actually? Change the idea of you know, I'll do it tomorrow Would you would you drop that concept and jump into doing the task? And I have to tell you invariably People have told me yes 100% I would jump right in To doing the task if at any point here in today's timeline I get a sudden burst of motivation to do the task so really what this sentiment of I'll do it tomorrow means is hopefully I'll do it tomorrow or maybe I'll do it tomorrow, but I Might Do it today You see the problem with I'll do it tomorrow Isn't that you're lying to yourself and that you're putting it all yet again. The problem is That you actually haven't fully Written off today and this day up here where you think you've you've told yourself. Okay, it's finished I'm stepping away from it. You actually haven't stepped away from it There's a big difference between telling yourself you'll do it tomorrow and Actually officially ending the day. I'll do it tomorrow versus I'm not doing it now. I won't do it today Officially categorically and you know with with conviction That's the only problem with the idea that I'll do it tomorrow. Not what you think It's not this big lie that we're told about it's actually it doesn't mean What we what we think it means it means yeah, okay, I'll do it tomorrow but Today is still open and the open-ended thing here is the problem because it creates all this tension in the body that you carry around to be productive means that we're good at being on and we're very good at being off and When we're telling ourselves we're doing it tomorrow and really what it means is yeah But I still might do it today this day here remains open all day long Even though you think you've said I'll do it here and you may intend to do it there You probably think you might do it there. You haven't officially shut the day down Okay, so if you could the only problem with I'll do it tomorrow is That there's not enough conviction behind it. I know it isn't that strange But if you can tell yourself look I will do this tomorrow and replace this part of it with something else Then we'll really have a much better solution. So let's get rid of this this part here. Let's get rid of this. That's what we Unconsciously or secretly mean when we when we say that to ourselves. Oh Don't you don't have to stop telling yourself. I'll do it tomorrow. You just have to add something to it It is this we need to add that today, which means we could say that today is Officially it's the word finished Officially finished. This is the trick to make this work for you You're allowed to tell yourself. I'll do it tomorrow as long as that means that today is officially done and that means Should motivation show up here or here or here? I still won't be doing it Okay The missing ingredient to personal productivity for years for decades Isn't motivation and it isn't even compassion. It's clarity decisiveness Boundaries with yourself. So if you can put that boundary to place this Space becomes a lot more clear. You're adding clarity to it. Now not a sense of we'll see It's the we'll see attitude or maybes get us into big big problems with personal productivity, so You're allowed to have a day where you say I'm not doing it Especially if you've made a commitment and you didn't show up for it The idea my new book is that you step away and use this time now to ideally you would do some reflection on What really happened there? I'll do it tomorrow is a fine thing to tell yourself as long as it doesn't mean maybe I'll do it later Secretly it has to mean today now is officially finished. I am NOT doing that task Stepping away from it. Add that what we're looking for here is not motivation. It's conviction Certainty right adding a little bit of because procrastination is this game of second-guessing yourself all the time and Negotiating and renegotiating if we can find a way to insert conviction clarity This gets a lot easier Okay, so if you've been the kind of person that notices that you say this to yourself a lot I look I'll do it tomorrow. You're actually a lot closer to solution than you think and a lot closer than a lot of personal productivity advice and videos that Would admonish you for that You're a lot closer than those videos would lead you to believe All you got to do is add conviction to it now if you could do that and you get good at I'm done now finish for today your body starts to relax it starts to get more certainty a Lot of the fear starts to go out all this this whole dynamic becomes a lot less stressful And you will find that making commitments to yourself becomes a lot easier and consistency will follow from that So when you say I'll do it tomorrow mean it that's the only thing I would add to it And that would be a game changer for you in your personal productivity Any thoughts or feedback leave them below you can reach me below my links to work with me one-to-one or there and for my books And for a group I also run as well, which is called a self-trust community, so we meet once a week So if you're interested in that and any of these ideas if they resonate with you you can find that on my website, too Take care. Talk again soon