The Real Reason You're Procrastinating AND Burned Out — And How to Fix It

If you're somehow both procrastinating and burning out while working from home, not to mention beating yourself up for it, this video is for you. In a recent blog post, I talked about how to actually do radical acceptance in order to set yourself up for compassionate, sustainable productivity and success. Today, I'm going to show you one example of what that can look like.

Watch the video below, or read on for the full transcript.

Hi, I'm Cas Winter. I'm a productivity and self care expert for those who are neurodivergent, chronically ill and disabled.

In my online program, the Action Navigator, I help people just like you master a toolset for self care and taking action so they can spend their precious time and energy the way they want and need to. Click the link in the description box below to learn more. Let's start with some definitions. Procrastination is simply a form of avoidance, but what's more important is that procrastination is morally neutral.

Burnout happens when we push ourselves past our limits for a sustained period of time without adequate recovery. Depending on your baseline, burnout can take years, or it could happen quickly. The experience of burnout is also morally neutral. If you're burning out, of course, you're also experiencing procrastination. In this context, procrastination is your mind and body's way of forcing you to prioritize recovery. But if you're either beating yourself up while you're procrastinating or endlessly trying to problem solve your procrastination, you're not actually recovering, are you?

So while it may feel like you're both doing too much and not enough at the same time, it's more accurate to say you're pushing yourself too much in one or more areas of your life, making it difficult, if not impossible, to do other things. Many different things can lead to procrastination and burnout. And if you're neurodivergent, chronically ill or disabled, you've likely experienced a lot of them. The one we're talking about today is life balance.

Another way to put it is in order to say yes to something, we need to say no to something or some things else. In coming back to YouTube this year, I was quickly burning out. I was experimenting with a new structure to my work week that in theory would allow me to put out a new video each week, while also allowing me to continue working on version two of my program, the Action Navigator.

Keep in mind that because of my disabilities, I only have one to two usable hours on each of these days to devote to my business. I used to have three to four each day, but I'm still recovering from a longer term burnout. Weeee. So here was my original idea for what my weeks would look like. Looking back, I can now see how impossible this was. There was no way I'd be able to comfortably create a YouTube video from Idea to publish in two to four hours spread across two weekdays each week.

It's so impossible it's laughable. But at the time, I couldn't see it. It was only through structured reflection during my weekly resets, and most recently my monthly reset, that I was able to see that this weekly structure I was experimenting with was based on a faulty premise that making a YouTube video would be quick and easy. Essentially, I was saying yes to too much and overextending myself. The result being a rapid descent towards severe burnout and procrastination.

The solution? Deciding what I wanted to say yes to and figuring out what I needed to say no to in order to say yes to what I wanted. Life Balance is not about spending equal amounts of time and energy on every aspect of your life. You can't give 100% of yourself 100% of the time. I'm going to repeat that because it's important. You cannot give 100% of yourself 100% of the time.

It's about spending more time and energy on the things that matter more to you at this point in time, and spending less time and energy on the things that matter less to you at this point in time. In other words, Life balance is about prioritizing and when you want or need to change your priorities, you change them. By the way, if you want access to a list of my favorite prioritizing methods, click the link in the description box below to sign up for my free Anytime reset which contains that list.

In my Radical Acceptance video, I talked about how high unsafe expectations lead to burnout and how Radical acceptance is the first step to setting safe, achievable expectations for yourself. Radical acceptance also happens to be a key step in figuring out what you want or need to say yes to versus no to in your life. I'm about to share some reflection questions to help you figure out what you want to say yes to versus no to this point in time.

And if you're game, I recommend trying my Anytime Pages journaling technique. For this I recommend keeping it to one to three 20 minute journaling sessions maximum. I don't want you adding to your burnout by over journaling, you with me? Here are the questions: in general, what is on my plate right now? For example, projects tasks, goals, dreams and responsibilities of what's on my plate? What do I know I want to say yes to?

Is there anything not on my plate right now that I want to say yes to and make room for? What would it cost me in time, energy and other resources to say yes to these things? This is where I recommend you really use your radical acceptance muscle. Be 100% honest with yourself. Answering this question, not being honest about this question is what got me into trouble making YouTube videos again.

Now that I understand what saying yes to these things would entail, do I still want to say yes to them? If not, do I want to say no to them? Or do I want to reduce my expectations in order to compromise and still say yes? What do I need to say no to in order to say yes to these things? In order to say yes to coming back to YouTube, I had to say no to working on version two of my program, the Action Navigator, four days each week. I've reduced down to one to two days each week. Creating one YouTube video each week. That simply wasn't feasible for my current capacity levels. Instead, I'm aiming for one video every two weeks. Here is the new schedule I've been successfully implementing to put out a new YouTube video every two weeks. I'm really proud of myself for not only taking the time and energy to iterate over the past couple months to arrive at this elegant structure, but for creating a system that's sustainable within the context of my current capacity.

So that's what I'm inviting you to do now. I invite you to spend some of your precious time and energy on the important task of figuring out your yeses and your nos so you can achieve the sustainable life balance that meets your current needs, and then offer yourself the grace to iterate over time as your needs change. You've got this Earlier, I mentioned my signature productivity and self care program, the Action Navigator, designed for those who are neurodivergent, chronically ill and disabled.

It's packed with tools and techniques for mastering your time, getting organized, and offering yourself radical compassion. If that sounds like exactly what you've been looking for, use the link in the description box below to learn more. I'll be back soon with another video. See you then. Bye.