Lessons from beating procrastination 260 times.

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be [View online]( [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Optimism is a strategy for [making a better future](. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so. ~ Noam Chomsky - - - - - #1. There is a glass-half-full approach to procrastination. In my coaching, people often tell me they want to end procrastination. I’ve never seen this happen. However, I’ve seen many people reduce procrastination. Starting with that goal, to reduce procrastination, opens up the ability to reframe the problem in the positive. Celebrate every single time you get something done. That’s a victory over procrastination. For example, I’ve written 260 newsletters now. I haven’t missed any, but I’ve also been up against the deadline for 251 of them. In my coaching, I call these grits. Every time you feel like procrastinating and power through counts as one “grit.” How many can you tally in a day? This positive framing came from something I bookmarked from [Darius Foroux]( when he was [celebrating the 300th entry on his blog](. His view is right on. - - - - - #2. Consume more good news. Phil M. wrote in to recommend a newsletter full of good news that doesn’t often make the mainstream, [Good News from Future Crunch](. Here’s an example: A new study has revealed a surprising decline in teenage drinking around the world, especially in northern European and English-speaking countries. The trend started in the early 2000s and has continued steadily over the past two decades. This is one way to intentionally counteract the biases that mainstream media pushes. - - - - - #3. A short use case for networked links in your journaling tool. The primary new feature in journaling tools like Mem, Roam, and Obsidian are backlinks. They are bidirectional. What that means is that when you are writing one note, you can link to another note. The power is that when you go look at that second note, you’ll see every other note that links to it. Those are the backlinks. A few months ago, I’d half-switched from Bear to Obsidian. The half I hadn’t done was sit down and learn the features. So this week I sat down, made a new note, and wrote out a checklist of what I wanted to learn. The list was backlinks, templates, connecting the mobile app, and saving to Dropbox. When I was done, I realized that there might be an idea for the newsletter. So I just added a link to my newsletter ideas note. Then when I went to write this newsletter, I went to my ideas note and saw the backlink. I know many of you are ahead of me on this. But it’s the first time I’ve successfully used this networked note-taking feature in a useful way. - - - - - Tips or feedback? [Send me a response on Twitter.]( Don’t miss out on the other issues by Coach Tony [Become a member for $5 per month]( Did you enjoy this issue? [Yes]( [No]( [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Tips, inspirations, and knowledge on productivity, happiness, health, and making an impact on our world. Official email of the Better Humans publication on Medium. (@bttrhumans) You can manage your subscription [here](. In order to unsubscribe, click [here](. If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe [here](. Created with [Revue by Twitter](.