Am I too busy, lazy, or procrastinating? I like to know which one is keeping me from doing what I’m not doing.

Here’s a game I’m now playing with myself that helps me figure out which thing is holding me back.

Let’s say I’ve got an item on my list. I set a deadline (because “they” say that’s important), and I prioritize the item as well (because that’s something else “they” say I should do). It’s due on Tuesday, and the priority is “high.”

Tuesday comes, Tuesday goes, and the list now says it was supposed to get done last Tuesday. Of course, nothing has been done. The project is just sitting there on the list—unfinished. I always have a handful of things in that unfinished state.

What do I do with the unfinished work? I move it to a future date. That feels like progress. Now it’s not overdue; it’s just undone. I’ll get to it on the new date.

Except that I don’t get to it on the new date either.

The cycle repeats. I move it forward again. Sometimes, I’ll have a handful of projects that just keep moving forward to a new date without my taking any action whatsoever.

That’s when I ask myself, “Am I too busy, lazy, or procrastinating?” Interestingly, the more I ask myself that question, the more I wonder whether maybe I’m all of the above.

The Rules of the Game

Here’s the game:

1. Sit quietly (that’s the best part).
2. Focus on the undone task.
3. Ask yourself, “What’s the obstacle?” You’ll have an answer. “I don’t have enough money to pay for it,” “I don’t have time to work on it,” “I can’t get any help with it,” or something.
4. Now ask yourself what you would do if you weren’t facing the obstacle. What if you had the money? What if you had the time? What if you had the help?
5. Now imagine life without the obstacle. This is where you’ve got to use the quiet time to take yourself to that place (really go there in your mind) where the obstacle doesn’t exist. Pretend that whatever is holding you back isn’t a problem. Put yourself in that space and ask yourself whether you’d do the work now that the obstacle is overcome.

“Sure, I’d do it,” you say to yourself. But would you? Would you really do it? Or would you find a new obstacle? Would you find some new reason to not get it done?

Analyzing Your Results

When I’m really honest with myself—when I let my brain believe the old obstacle doesn’t exist—I find out whether it’s busyness, laziness, or procrastination.

How can I tell? Because, more often than not, I invent a new obstacle. When I think about the project from a very practical perspective, I find some reason that I can’t do it without something else changing. In my imagination, I’ve overcome the first obstacle, and now I’m creating something new. The new obstacle is the big clue.

1. Let’s repeat Step 5 above. What if you overcome the second obstacle? What if you eliminate the second obstacle just like you eliminated the first? Imagine that it too was gone. Would you do it now? Or would you find a third obstacle?

The obstacles tell me the story. They tell me that I’m not too busy, lazy, or procrastinating. They tell me it’s something more. Those obstacles tell me that it’s none of the above. It’s something different. It’s fear.

Recognizing the Fear

I’m afraid. I’ve learned that creating seemingly rational barriers to action is my way of reacting to my fear. I invent explanations for not doing the thing. I make it the fault of something external. It’s not me causing the delay. It’s that obstacle. That’s what I’d like to believe.

It took me a very long time to figure this out about myself. It was like a light turned on for me. Ah, I get it now. It’s fear.

The obstacles I invent are amazing. I think I’m at my most creative when I’m dreaming up new reasons to not do the thing that makes me afraid. It’s crazy in the same way that phobias are crazy. They’re perfectly real. They feel entirely reasonable. They can be explained in a million logical ways (heights: you really could fall, snakes: they do actually bite people, needles: they hurt).

If you’re creating new obstacles when you play my game, then you’re finding out that it’s not busyness, laziness, or procrastination. It’s not that you’re lazy. It’s that you’re afraid. There’s something about this thing that scares you. Some things are just frightening, and we don’t necessarily recognize that without thought.

Some experts talk about fear of success. Maybe that’s it. Other experts talk about fear of failure. That could be it too. It doesn’t matter why you’re afraid. All that matters is that you now know why that thing remains undone. Now you know it’s fear. Now you can move forward.

Handling Your Fear

How do I get rid of the fear?

You don’t. That’s what Seth Godin says. He says, “That’s the wrong question.” He says that the only way to get rid of the fear is to stop doing things that matter. I bet that sometimes looks like busyness, laziness, or procrastination. He says you need to “dance” with the fear.

How do you dance with the fear?

You already know how. You do it every day. There’s no way to practice law without fear. Something scary happens each day, whether it’s the judge, the opposing counsel, the client, or the circumstances. We engage with our fears constantly; we dance with the fear. I’d argue that it’s the fear that sometimes takes us to our highest level of performance. It’s that anxiety we turn into energy to rocket upward.

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Sometimes, though, the fear is more than we can handle. Some of our fears are more imposing than others. We resist engaging with the really scary stuff. We put it further down the task list.

Extending the Dance

Seth Godin has more for us than the short blog post I’ve linked to above. He’s written an entire book that helps you dance with the fear. What to Do When It’s Your Turn (And It’s Always Your Turn) is a great piece of work. It helps you stop putting off the scary items. It helps you start checking them off your list.

His book is about doing the big stuff, the meaningful stuff—the stuff that makes the biggest difference in your world and the world of all the others around you. It’s a great read.

The new Godin book is only available as a physical (not digital) item. It’s colorful, beautiful, and powerful. If you’re ready to make those projects happen, then you’re ready for Seth Godin’s new book.