Painless Productivity

Are you sick of procrastinating?

Let me guess: you see That Task — the one you’ve never done before, the one that’s too complicated to fully envision, or the one that’s impossible to do perfectly — on your To Do list, and you suddenly:

• grab your phone without even thinking about it, and start scrolling through social media. An hour later you seem to “wake up” and wonder how you got there.
• get really interested in cleaning out your inbox!
• walk to the fridge on autopilot. Surely a snack will buy you some time…
• feel foggy and tired, like you can’t think straight, so you decide you need a nap first. Funny though, how you weren’t tired at all a minute ago.

The only thing that seems to make you do That Task is the sheer panic you face when you’re down the wire and accountable to somebody else.

But that’s not a sustainable solution:

• You’re afraid people at work will finally start to notice how much time you waste.
• And the way you have to catch up on work after hours is starting to cut into your personal life.
• Even when you do make time to socialize, the guilt and worry about unfinished work can hang over your head while you try to relax and connect with your loved ones.

You don’t want to live the rest of your working life this way. Something’s gotta change.

You tried the productivity hacks.

So you

• bought a beautiful planner
• downloaded the coolest new productivity app
• got an accountability buddy, or
• tried a technique like the pomodoro method, time blocking, or eating the frog

It worked! You’re a new person!

For about two weeks.

And then, the magic wore off. It’s like a part of you that you can’t seem to control is undermining every technique, no matter how cool it is.

So you tried committing harder.

The hustle culture bros say that you need to be harder on yourself. They know about that part of you that doesn’t want to do That Task, and they think you need to overpower it.

What they don’t realize is that being hard on yourself is actually part of the problem. That’s what your procrastinating part is rebelling against!

You can overpower it for a little while here and there, but not every day for the rest of your life.

What’s really going on

When your procrastination is triggered by tasks that are:

• Unclear
• New to you
• Hard to plan completely, or
• Hard to execute perfectly

That’s a good sign that fear of failure is what’s behind your procrastination.

You may know this fear as “perfectionism,” “overthinking,” or “imposter syndrome.” Whatever you call it, the procrastinating part of you is trying to save you from the discomfort of doing a bad job by keeping you from doing the job at all.

Procrastinating parts tend to think “better to fail because I didn’t try than to do my best and still fail. Finding out that my best isn’t good enough would be too painful.”

I get it.

As a woman in academia, and then a software developer without a computer science degree, I basically picked up an honorary degree in imposter syndrome.

It held me back from getting things done, learning new things, and even asking for the help I needed. It got so bad that I got screened for clinical anxiety and ADHD. They diagnosed me with…nothing.

“Then why is it so hard for me to focus on my job?” I asked the doctor, who was about to bill me hundreds of dollars for this conversation and send me away empty-handed. She shrugged. 

I didn’t know how to get the help I needed then. 

But you can get the help you need now.

Because in the meantime, I learned how the fear of failure and judgment can cause procrastination, whether you have other diagnoses or not. And by studying parts work, somatic coaching, and more, I learned how to help people get to the root of their fears about work and trade them out for confidence.

And I don’t mean hype, or arrogance, or faking it till you make it.

I mean quiet, relaxed self-assurance. Trust in yourself to figure things out, even when they’re new, confusing, and just plain difficult.

This is a kind of confidence you’ll feel comfortable owning even if you’re a modest, shy type of person. 

And it’s the kind of confidence you need to overcome procrastination.

When you can stand to fail, then you can give yourself the chance to succeed. And usually, you will succeed, but you know what? If you do fail after all, then this confidence allows you to learn from it and get better at your job!

So either way, this means:

• Getting more done
• Performing better at your job, 
• Finishing your work in time to have a life, and
• Doing it all with less stress

How to get that confidence

People will tell you that Imposter Syndrome never goes away, that this is just a part of life and you have to get used to it. But change is possible.

Working with Presley has enabled change in ways I did not realize were possible before I embarked on this work.

Jess S.

It takes:

• Self-compassion. This isn’t just because it feels nice; self-compassion quiets the part of you that says “do That Task already!” long enough for us to listen to the part of you that wants to avoid doing That Task.
• Finding the root cause. We need to listen to the part of you that wants to procrastinate in order to find the subconscious belief that drives it.
• Experiential learning. Telling yourself “You’re being irrational! Get over it!” doesn’t change subconscious beliefs, but experiential learning does.

So that’s what we do in my six-month, one-on-one coaching program, Painless Productivity.

Why Painless Productivity works

Painless Productivity addresses all those requirements for lasting change:

• It guides you into uncovering new insights about why you procrastinate. This naturally generates self-compassion: you don’t have to look into the mirror and will yourself to feel better, it just happens.

Our work together helped me realize how multifaceted I am and stop feeling ashamed of my differences. I realized that I don’t have to compare myself to other people – I’m running my own race. I even started to appreciate my neurodivergent mind and realize that my mind is one of my greatest assets. There are still moments when I feel bad about myself, but now I know how to pause and find self-compassion in those moments. I’m really proud of myself for that.

Jenny

• That self-compassion relaxes your defenses, making it possible to explore your subconscious beliefs: the root cause of your procrastination.

Presley just gently guides and you discover what is true for you.

Anne K.

• I guide you through experiences that help you realize in your bones that your limiting beliefs are unfounded, which makes you feel more capable and ready to do anything…even That Task.

Working with Presley has helped me gain a greater understanding of myself, more inner peace, and self-confidence.

Eileen A.

What you get out of Painless Productivity

Anti-procrastination Skills

You’ll learn practical skills that can help you be gentle with yourself and get back into action when the urge to procrastinate strikes.

I’m ending the series not only with pervasive experiences, but very granular, hands-on ways of coping with and bouncing back from my work (and interrelational) triggers.

Chris F.

I am truly amazed at how quickly this method can be used in day to day tasks and situations. It becomes a natural way to relate to the self.

Kristi

Less Stress

As you stop beating yourself up and learn how to move out of overwhelm, your day-to-day stress level goes down:

Over the course of doing the Painless Productivity package, everything got 15-20% easier and less stressful.

Melissa Post

The outcome of this engagement both reduces stress and overwhelm, and increases productivity.

Jess S.

I’m less stressed out day-to-day now, and I feel less like I’m always trying to beat the clock.

Jenny

Unlocked Productivity

Once your fears aren’t holding you back anymore, you can actually do hard things!

For instance, Jenny was struggling to write anything she didn’t think would be perfect. Painless Productivity made it easier for her to journal and to write job applications:

Putting pen to paper has gotten easier by leaps and bounds. I’ve been able to move out of resistance on applying to jobs and not spend three whole days on an application that doesn’t call for that.

Jenny

Anne F. needed to get better at saying no to other people, so she could make more time for her own work:

I don’t feel the dreadful internal feeling of “obligation” to satisfy another person’s wishes, needs, requests etc. I just felt a kind of quiet calm, that I have my boundaries and I’m going to honour them. And it’s okay if that person doesn’t like it or has negative feelings towards me about it.

Anne F.

Taylor needed to heal from empathic burnout before she could start getting more done:

Aspects of my work that were leading towards burnout feel less overwhelming and more manageable. Areas of my personal life where I knew “something” was missing now feel like areas where I know what I want to change.

Taylor

Nora wanted to get better at making time to rest and do self-care:

After working with Presley, I was able to use the skills I learned in coaching to soothe myself and make a shift from feeling like I have to do this self-care work to feeling like I want to. It made a really big difference. I’ve recommitted to my self-care routines, and they make the rest of my life work better.

Nora

†

Melissa needed to get out of the cycle of using adrenaline to power her productivity and then crashing:

I don’t have to use that fear-based drive all the time anymore. Now I am learning that I can feel safe and calm, and be active at the same time.

Melissa Post

As you can see, the results of Painless Productivity vary widely because people vary widely. Because we work together one-on-one, we can fit Painless Productivity to your unique situation.

How it works

I’ve incorporated research and experience into a carefully designed 6-month program that balances your busy schedule with deep, customized help.

Month 1: Four individual coaching sessions

By starting with 4 sessions in one month, you:

• Get ramped up quickly
• Establish healthy habits

During this period, you can expect to:

• Become more self-aware
• Gain insight into your patterns
• Feel less critical of yourself and more understanding of why you procrastinate
• Learn what techniques are best for moving you out of your personal procrastination patterns. Techniques aren’t enough, but it’s still helpful to have them in your back pocket!

Months 2-6: Two individual coaching sessions per month

By switching to 2 sessions a month, you get:

• A sustainable time commitment
• Weeks off that let you see how well you’re integrating change into your everyday life

During this period, you can expect to:

• Find the beliefs that drive your fears – beliefs like “I’m not good enough unless I’m perfect”
• See those beliefs fall away and get replaced with more helpful ones
• Feel less fear of failure
• Feel less driven to procrastinate

You may also find some areas where you have a genuine lack of motivation, and I can help you connect with your purpose and sense of agency to generate healthy motivation.

Between Sessions

You don’t just get 14 sessions with me. You get me as your coach for the whole 6 months. That means:

• Email support for any questions you have.
• Customized micro-exercises to integrate our work into your everyday life.
• Pre-Flight Check – a resource you can use to prepare yourself to face That Task even when I’m not around. I put my best productivity tricks into it, in a format designed not to be overwhelming.

3 Months Later: Bonus Check-In

I offer a complimentary follow-up session 3 months after we finish working together, to make sure that our work has integrated into your life smoothly. It’s important to me that our work really changes your life rather than being a temporary band-aid.

Your Investment

Painless Productivity includes 14 50-minute coaching sessions. At $150 a session, that’s a value of $2100, before we even count the bonus session and the between-session support.

But I’m currently offering Painless Productivity for $1800, or $300/month for 6 months.

THANK YOU! I went from pretty much a functional freeze to having a productive day and I feel so much better.

Shelly M.

FAQ

How much homework is there?

I understand that you’re here because follow-through is challenging! So I design the homework to be doable. I always make it:

• Customized for integrating the progress you just made in session – no homework just for the sake of homework!
• Short – we’re talking one to ten minutes of your time.
• Linked to a cue in your life so that it’s easy to remember – for instance, I may ask you to strike a pose while you make your coffee, or journal immediately after our session (we end ten minutes before the hour, so I encourage you to consider yourself booked for the whole hour, and bam, you have time for homework).

If you have an hour a week to dedicate to your procrastination and self-confidence between sessions and homework, you have time for Painless Productivity.

Does this work for ADHDers?

Yes, many of my clients have ADHD and find Painless Productivity very helpful. It’s just important to understand which aspects of the ADHD experience it addresses, and which it does not. Painless Productivity can help you:

• release shame about your ADHD.
• calm overwhelm so that it’s easier to think straight.
• lower your fear of doing new and hard things.
• build trust in yourself.

It does not:

• focus on helping you do tasks that you 100% want to do — no fear or inner conflict — and just can’t do because of executive dysfunction.
• change your neurotype.
• help you if you can’t make it to sessions regularly.
• focus on logistical techniques and accommodations.

Thanks to the work I’ve done with Presley, I feel better equipped to continue my exploration of my neurodivergence and creating a life of independence with it in mind, rather than in spite of it!

Jenny

Will you hold me accountable?

I’ll ask you if you did your homework, but I don’t use disapproval to motivate you to get it done. 

I understand that pressure from other people may be the only truly reliable motivator you’ve experienced. But I’m here to help you change that, not to make you dependent on me forever. 

So when you don’t accomplish something, I’m not mad or disappointed. I’m happy to have uncovered one of the obstacles that’s keeping you stuck, and I help you remove that obstacle.

Will you work on my To Do list and calendar?

Let’s be honest: if I were to give you suggestions about how to rearrange your life to get more done, you would probably say “I tried that, but it didn’t work.”

I think you’re smart enough to figure out a To Do list and schedule that work for you. The problem is that a part of you doesn’t want to do the thing. 

So I focus on helping you get out of your own way, and then you can figure out the logistics on your own. Sure, I can weigh in from time to time, but the best bang for your buck comes from using our sessions to work through your resistance to starting.

Previous “life” coaching experiences sometimes left me feeling unseen or unheard. Like being handed advice that you feel doesn’t really fit. With Presley’s coaching, this never happened.

Chris F.

I’m not a procrastinator, I’m a workaholic! The problem is that I spend a lot of time on stuff that’s not really necessary, and run out of time to do the important stuff. Can Painless Productivity help me?

Yes! You have mastered productive procrastination – channeling your anxious energy into getting things done while avoiding the scariest (and most important!) things on your To Do list. Painless Productivity can help you develop the confidence to face your most important tasks first so that you don’t have to work overtime to finally get to them.

Do I have to talk about my feelings?

Yep. But it’s okay if you’re not good at doing that yet – it’s my job to gently guide you into your feelings. It’s also my job to keep your feelings from overwhelming you; I’ll help you stay grounded even when emotions are coming up. 

But I’m not gonna lie – this work is vulnerable. Tears aren’t unusual. We dig deep in order to get to the root of your procrastination. If that’s not okay with you, no hard feelings, but Painless Productivity isn’t a good fit for you right now.

Presley is a great person to do this work with because she does such a good job of creating an accepting environment. Her modeling of soft, attentive, calm has made me more gentle and curious with myself.

Cable

How is this different from therapy?

You might think of a therapist’s job as keeping your head above water. As a result,

• they’ll help you with whatever is your biggest issue this week.
• they help people with recognized mental illnesses or disorders, and may need to stop working with you once you’re doing okay.
• they often allow the client to direct the session, which has benefits but can leave some people feeling lost and like they’re wasting time.

My job, on the other hand, is to work with people whose heads are already above water, and help them swim in a direction — specifically, towards confidence and easeful productivity. That means:

• I don’t work with people who have certain kinds of symptoms: flashbacks, fear of tuning into physical sensations, dissociative amnesia, or psychosis.
• I don’t work with people whose coping mechanisms put them at risk of harming themselves or others.
• We don’t have to stop at “good enough.” I can help you continue to raise the bar for how good you feel and how effective you are.
• We stay focused on your confidence and productivity, and I have structure for starting off the session that helps us quickly focus in on your top priority.

Having done many forms of coaching and therapy over the years, I can honestly say that I have accomplished more and felt better with parts work and Presley than any other modality or coach.

Anne K.

What if I don’t like it? Can I quit?

I only want satisfied clients. If you realize this program isn’t a fit for you, you can quit and I’ll refund you for any months you’ve paid for but not started. But fair warning – no one has ever asked for a refund ;).

Is it right for you?

We can find out together in a free, no-pressure consultation:

Or sign up here.

Still have questions? Contact me — I’d love to hear them.

Not ready yet? Join my newsletter to stay in touch!

Full Testimonials

The level of composure and consciousness I have gained from this process feels like a superpower that I never knew I had. New opportunities are more inviting and unknown obstacles are less intimidating. The amount of awareness I have now I would have never guessed was possible when I first began this work. I am excited to be continuing this journey of self-improvement, and about where the future will take me whilst being profoundly present!

Michael

When I started coaching with Presley, I was having a lot of trouble getting started on projects. The only way I could get myself to do hard things was to use adrenaline-fueled hyperfixation. I had to feel like I was under threat in order to be motivated. And even then, I was struggling to do things.

Over the course of doing the Painless Productivity package, everything got 15-20% easier and less stressful. I signed up for a course that I previously would have been too intimidated to try, and I’m off to a good start on it! I still can’t believe I chose this course, but I found my genuine interest in it and that helps me be less afraid to be wrong.

In the past, I would have motivated myself to work on this topic by looking at other people’s GitHub projects and then making myself feel so bad about it that I needed to do it. But now, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to find what I actually care about and what I actually want to do that has nothing to do with feeling like I need to compare myself to someone else.

Even though I’m moving past my need to use adrenaline and threats to motivate myself, our work together made me admire this driven part of me that used adrenaline to push me all my life. Now I look at all the obstacles I’ve faced and think, “I really had to overcome all that to do things, and still kept up that drive most of my life? That’s amazing!”

And yet, I don’t have to use that fear-based drive all the time anymore. Now I am learning that I can feel safe and calm, and be active at the same time.

It’s a brand new world, and I’m taking baby steps into it. Of course I haven’t become perfectly productive, but after these few months of coaching, I feel ready to explore this new world on my own.

Melissa Post

Working with Presley as a parts work coach has been extremely worthwhile and has enabled change in ways I did not realize were possible before I embarked on this work.

Presley is extremely well versed in Internal Family Systems, and asks thoughtful questions to help her clients engage with their parts from a place of compassion and open-mindedness.  As a result, she has been able to help me work through challenges and implement effective and sustainable solutions. 

Working with Presley over time, I’ve been able to experience more of the “self” being in the driver’s seat. Rather than specific parts automatically taking over the system, I’m able to pause and engage the self with that part in a consultative way. The outcome of this engagement both reduces stress and overwhelm, and increases productivity. 

I can’t recommend enough working with Presley as a parts work coach, and I would be happy to chat with anyone who would like to know more about my experience!

Jess S.

This work helped me think about myself differently. Aspects of my work that were leading towards burnout feel less overwhelming and more manageable. Areas of my personal life where I knew “something” was missing now feel like areas where I know what I want to change.

Taylor

I’m definitely feeling more empowered to catch up on large and small tasks. I think I’m also recognizing more easily that there are times I can’t be at my most perfectly productive and I feel more accepting of myself in those moments and less critical and judgmental.

In retrospect this guided Parts work, even though it was often truly exhausting, reached deeper into my issues than anything else I’ve ever tried. I’m ending the series not only with pervasive experiences, but very granular, hands-on ways of coping with and bouncing back from my work (and interrelational) triggers.

Chris F.

Even though I had the willpower and grit to take on learning coding for the first time, making progress was a nightmare. Struggling with difficult to learn concepts and new ways of tackling them went way beyond impostor syndrome; studying Python regularly left me in tears and dreading the next session. Reassurances from other programmers that struggling and frustration was “normal” didn’t help because I could tell even though it might not be more difficult for me to learn to code, it was more difficult for me to control my emotions and the feelings of self-recrimination that grew out of them.

Parts work drew me as an interesting modality but its emphasis on parsing yourself out into different sub-personalities was pretty far from my experience of my inner life. Still, I could tell I had a lot of inner conflict over my decision to learn to code and other parts of IFS, like the Self, drew my interest and curiosity.

Presley did a fantastic job as a parts coach, letting me take my own time and cater my way of expressing myself to work with the modality. Working through my feelings and my parts, her work with me helped me realize that I tried to tell myself a story that coding was “more important” than the creative work I had been so happy to rediscover in my thirties after half a decade of pushing it aside to carve out my ability to survive post-divorce. I realized I needed to make space for the intellectual pursuits that were important to me emotionally and existentially in order to make space for career development.

She also helped me realize I needed to stop trying to push aside my feelings of frustration and defeat when I was coding, and I had to learn to accept that I was someone who maybe felt their frustration more intensely even if it was inconvenient or “weird.” Giving myself space to feel upset when something didn’t click–instead of trying to argue myself out of feeling bad learning a really challenging skill–ultimately helped me take another stab at learning a concept sooner. It also helped me give myself permission to take a break when I needed to instead of when I thought I should need to.

Ultimately, I realized it was toxic to try and force myself to feel positive all the time when I’m learning coding or other challenging STEM subjects. Recriminating myself for feeling defeated when I was struggling only added more fuel to the fire of self-hatred. Learning that I had to accept my bad feelings helped me realize that feeling things intensely gives me other gifts like empathy, creativity, and joy. Accepting those feelings helped me bring more self-love to other struggles and interactions and helped me realize even feeling bad about yourself over shit that doesn’t matter in the cosmic scheme of the universe is normal and human. Not unlike grief, you have to move through those feelings instead of forcing yourself into an even deeper cycle of shame and self-recrimination.

Kate C.

When I started coaching with Presley, I wanted to improve my relationship with rest. I knew that in order to reach my creative goals, I needed to start resting enough to feel rejuvenated, and build enough resilience to have some extra fuel in my tank for creative pursuits. This has meant getting to bed on time consistently and resting when my body needs. I’m trying to stay centered in the idea that we do not need to earn rest thru productivity, but rather we must rest first and then decide what to do with that fuel. This has also meant cutting down on scrolling through social media, which isn’t restorative or satisfying for me.

My work with Presley helped me improve my ability to notice when I needed rest, and to actually take that rest.

I got better at interpreting my body’s signals of tiredness, which helped me know when to stop frustratedly trying to get things done and call it a night. 

When I developed an evening routine for myself that gets me into bed by a reasonable hour, Presley helped me find and address obstacles to sticking to it.

Coaching also helped me develop a compassion for myself that makes it easier for me to choose rest. I feel more accepting of my imperfections and willing to grow at a manageable pace, rather than feeling like I have to grow in every single way as fast as possible. For instance, recently I took a couple really full rest days and allowed myself to let go into that rather than feeling guilty about it. That was a really big deal for me.

I’ve also had trouble with my relationship to self-care – sometimes it feels unfair that I have to do so much work to recover from hard times. But after working with Presley, I was able to use the skills I learned in coaching to soothe myself and make a shift from feeling like I have to do this self-care work to feeling like I want to. It made a really big difference. I’ve recommitted to my self-care routines, and they make the rest of my life work better. In honoring the parts of me that need rest, I feel much more harmonized with my whole self, making it much easier to find motivation to achieve many sorts of goals. This has led me to enjoy many things more fully, including my creative pursuits.

Nora

When I started working with Presley, I was being really hard on myself, and that stress was making it hard for me to work towards my goals. I have ADHD, and I was a high achiever through college, but since then I’d been finding it really hard to perform well at work. I started a business on the side that I love, but I was even avoiding the work for that. All of this was really affecting my self-esteem.

Our work together helped me realize how multifaceted I am and stop feeling ashamed of my differences. I realized that I don’t have to compare myself to other people – I’m running my own race. I even started to appreciate my neurodivergent mind and realize that my mind is one of my greatest assets. There are still moments when I feel bad about myself, but now I know how to pause and find self-compassion in those moments. I’m really proud of myself for that.

I’m less stressed out day-to-day now, and I feel less like I’m always trying to beat the clock. We got to the bottom of what was making it so hard for me to face my work, and I cleaned off my desk to give myself a fresh start. I set a short-term goal to find a new job that will stress me out less so that I’ll have the space to work on my business.

At the beginning, I was afraid to even look at my bank account or try to forecast my finances. Now, I find myself not breathing as hard when I go to open my bank account. I can center myself and readjust my savings goals and use it to inform my job hunting goals.

Putting pen to paper has gotten easier by leaps and bounds. I’ve been able to move out of resistance on applying to jobs and not spend three whole days on an application that doesn’t call for that.

There are several things I’ve done without procrastinating that normally would’ve taken me forever, like unpacking after a trip, or changing my health insurance. I’m following through on setting appointments for personal wellness. I’m scrolling on my phone less. I’m on a tolerance break of over a month, and I’m even on a streak of studying Portuguese!

Thanks to the work I’ve done with Presley, I feel better equipped to continue my exploration of my neurodivergence and creating a life of independence with it in mind, rather than in spite of it!

Jenny