We’ve been talking about how to beat procrastination. Today, we’re going a little different direction by talking about “wisdom procrastination.”

Wisdom procrastination is when you have a deep-seated resistance to doing a thing because it isn’t compatible with your passion & skills.

Yes, this is different than just laziness. (We’ll talk about actual laziness later.)

Some of the world’s most successful people have become successful by discovering what areas they can make the greatest contribution, and then deliberately unloading other tasks and responsibilities to those who love to do them, and are skilled at them.

There’s an old joke about Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.  The joke was that he was made so much money, that if he saw $1k on the sidewalk, it would not be worth it for him to stop, lean down, and pick it up… he would literally LOSE MONEY by taking 3 seconds to pick up $1,000!

Sometimes, when you are delaying a task, it may be because you instinctively recognize that you aren’t the right person to do it. Perhaps you do not have the correct skills. Perhaps you are not passionate about that activity. Perhaps learning how to do it would take too long.

I’d encourage you to stop viewing this type of procrastination as evil, and start viewing it as wisdom!

What if, instead of beating yourself up about these things, you chose to view your time as so valuable that you cannot afford to use it doing things which others could:

• Do faster and more efficiently than you could?
• Do better and more skillfully than you could?
• Do with more joy than you could?

So how would we go about dealing with this type of procrastination?

STRATEGIES for “wisdom procrastination”

Strategy #1: Think who, not how.

I learned this concept in Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s excellent little book “Who, Not How.”

The next time you come to a problem, stop thinking “how can I overcome this problem?” Instead, think “Who could help me overcome this problem?”

This will create a mindset where you are able to delegate a task, or hire someone more effectively.

Pick a project where you’ve been procrastinating.  Ask yourself:

• Who could help me overcome this problem?
• Who has the necessary skills?
• Who would already know to tackle this?
• Who do I know that has been successful at this?

Then, ask that person what they would charge to tackle the problem for you, and you move on to the part of the project that you do better than anyone else.

For instance, for my mini-course on “Brain Tricks that Finally Defeat Procrastination,” rather than doing the design, I turned the content over to a virtual assistant in Pakistan, who did a much better job than I could do, did it faster than I could, and I moved on to create more value in other areas!