Intentional Delays: How to Make Wise Choices That Boost Productivity

I’m Melissa Shanahan, and this is The Law Firm Owner Podcast Episode #311. 

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Hi everyone. Welcome back to The Law Firm Owner Podcast. Today's episode is a refresh and a build-on. I want to revisit something I've talked about before, which was an episode, it was Episode #119, and it was called Virtuous Procrastination. That whole episode, which you will hear if you go back and listen to that episode, was inspired by a law firm owner named Michael Malloy, who I love dearly and got to work with for quite a while. That was his concept that he came up with. So, I shared about that on the podcast because I thought everybody could probably take a page from thinking about things in that way.

And today, I'm going to introduce something new that I think belongs in our vocabulary, which is sagacious delay, which is another term that was used recently, and I was like, wait a minute, what? These two ideas are so worth differentiating, especially if you're someone who cares about honoring your time, making good decisions, operating from intention, not being reactive. We really cut off our access to success when we're reactive constantly, and so many of us are, especially when things get busy and we get out of habits and frameworks that have really served us. So, let's get into today and talk about these two things.

Let's talk about first, virtuous procrastination, so what it really is. It's not about being lazy. It's not really even about blowing something off. It's sneakier than that. Here's what it is. It's when you don't do what you said you'd do because you don't feel like it, but it feels okay because you're going to do something else “important.” And I have air quotes around important. So, it feels justifiable. You tell yourself you're still being productive, but the truth is, you abandon your original plan. You didn't do what you said you would do. And even though you fill the time with something else that looked good on paper, the cost is real.

The cost is self-trust. We've talked a lot about self-trust on this podcast. It's having a confidence in yourself that you will do what you say you're going to do. And the only way you can really figure out if you're trustworthy in that respect or not is to make a plan and honor the plan. So, the cost is self-trust. The cost is momentum. The cost is reinforcing a pattern that says it's okay to wiggle out of something that's uncomfortable, to wiggle out of something when you don't feel like doing it, to wiggle out of discomfort.

Now, let's talk about sagacious delay. Last week, I was at an incredible conference. Shout out to Tara Gronhovd of, the CEO of Align. She's been on this podcast a handful of times. She's going to be on it more in the future. I just adore her. I admire her work. It's important work, and she's really good at what she does. And the company she built is nothing short of remarkable.

The conference that she threw was impeccably executed. And I can say that because I throw events and it's usually for members, and it's usually small numbers of people. But the amount of planning that goes into those and making sure that our T's are crossed and our I's are dotted, and sometimes we do a better job with that than others, but we're getting better and better and better and better, generally speaking, with throwing events. But this was an event for 400 people. She has a small team, and make no mistake, she had a ton of support with this. Her sponsors were amazing. You know, she's not in a major metropolitan area. She's in St. Cloud, Minnesota, which is about an hour and a half, a little bit more than that, outside of Minneapolis. I just looked up the population. It's about 71,000 people live in St. Cloud.

Okay, so Tara threw an amazing conference last week, and the caliber of conference that she threw in a smaller city, it was a sight to see. I have to tell you, I mean, every detail was thought through. Everything. The programs themselves were useful and beautiful. The room and the way it was set up, the signage, the sponsorships were directly from the community and very aligned, pun intended. Her company is called Align.

Okay, I digress. It was awesome. The conference was called Shift, by the way. They're going to do it next year. You should 100% look into it. I took my whole team this year, and I'm so glad I knew about it. I'm so glad I know Tara so that I could know that this was happening and get myself some tickets and go. So, it was me, Mika, Giselle, and Natalie, who's our newest team member. She's here in Denver. We all flew to Minneapolis, drove to St. Cloud, and had an excellent time there for the conference.

The main speaker that Tara had at this conference was a man named Jon Acuff. I have known of Jon Acuff, partially just because I've been in the self-development coaching world for a very long time. And I've known that he has a sense of humor, but I don't know a ton about him. I haven't read one of his books. I'll tell you, the thing that I do know is that he makes an amazing calendar that I have purchased for Syndicate members specifically. I have purchased for them and sent to them as a bit of a welcome or a kickoff to the Syndicate experience.

Syndicate is a program that is really for people we've already worked with and are that level of support is what feels right for them. So then it's offered to them to be able to take part in. And so that group is highly curated. It's a specific type of breed that is in this group, and one that I know will appreciate a really great calendar, not just a year-at-a-glance calendar that you can buy on Amazon. Like, this is different.

I've known about this calendar for quite some time, and the person who makes the calendar is Jon Acuff. We got those calendars, if anybody's interested, at neuyear.net. There's a few calendars on there that you can choose from, but "new" is spelled N-E-U, neuyear.net. So, I order calendars from there and get them sent to Syndicate members each year that we kick off a new cohort.

So that's how I knew of him. And I have followed him a little bit on social media, not a lot, but this event turned me into a fan. He's a great speaker. And I'll tell you why. He infuses humor so much into his events. He is a comedian. Like, he has done stand-up just for stand-up's sake, but he also, it feels like stand-up when you're listening to him speak. So, this is a person that because he's worked so hard, I was going to say he's gifted, and I think he is gifted, but make no mistake, he's worked really hard to get to the level of mastery that he's gotten to with speaking and infusing comedy into all of it. So, it makes him fun to learn from.

One of the things he talked about, he mentioned, was sagacious delay and how it's a good thing. So, really, it's kind of the opposite side of the coin as virtuous procrastination. Sagacious delay is the intentional choice to put something off until a better time to focus on it. And the keyword here is intentional. This isn't just skipping over something. It's you actually making a thoughtful decision to delay something because you've identified a more appropriate or more effective time to give it your attention. So, it's wise, it's strategic, and when done well, it actually builds trust in your system and builds trust in yourself.

So, you know, when you are going about your day, going about your week, and you have something that hits your brain that would be a worthy task or project to give your attention to, instead of dropping what you said you would do for it, you actually plan when you're going to give it attention. So you don't let it disrupt what you're doing. You instead say, "Oh, I'm going to do that here." And it allows you to not only honor the plan of what you were doing in the moment, but also gives you the opportunity to honor that plan that you set in motion.

Another example of this is if a new big idea hits your brain. There are so many people that I meet that will drop the priorities that they did have. I mean over the course of a quarter, I don't mean in a day. Over the course of a quarter, they will just drop what they said they were going to do and pick up this new idea. It's like a new shiny object.

And sagacious delay speaks to, "No, no, no. I'm going to finish the thing I'm going to do, and I'm going to put this in a parking lot and decide later where it goes. Where does it fit? When should I actually give attention to this?" Or maybe you just go ahead and slot it in right then as you have the idea, but you don't just react to the ideas that you have. You don't allow these ideas to pull you off track from the things that you said you were going to do.

And the reason that you said you were going to do certain things is because they were important. When you allow yourself to be pulled off track because you don't feel like doing it, and for something important, that's virtuous procrastination. When you are honoring your plan and something hits your brain and you decide to make a plan for that thing, when you're going to tackle it, that's sagacious delay.

So, to recap, virtuous procrastination happens in the moment. It's driven by discomfort. It's driven by distraction, and you swap the plan for something shinier or more urgent feeling in the moment. Sagacious delay happens with intention, either during your weekly planning or in a real-time moment of clarity. Either way, you don't just react and dig into it. You decide when it's going to get attention, and you wait until then.

Now, Monday Map, many of you are familiar with Monday Map. If you're not, you can get access to the guide to Monday Map, Friday Wrap, which is a process that we teach where you sit down for about an hour. It may take you a little longer at first because you're getting your bearings with it, and because your reality is a mess and you're going to have to start to clean that up, right? In terms of all the things that are on your plate and when you're going to get them done. But eventually, it should take about an hour every week to plan your upcoming week. And it's your best tool here.

And these tools fall right in line with showing how Monday Map can really support you because it forces you, when you're doing Monday Map, it forces you to declare what matters most this week. You've already thought through your time, the time that you have versus the tasks and projects that you need to give attention to or you're going to give attention to. So, you've made, when you're planning, you've made decisions ahead of time.

So when the urge to pivot comes up, you've got a filter. Is this a wise adjustment or just avoidance dressed up as productivity? Sagacious delay has a home in Monday Map. If you realize something should move, you move it intentionally. You don't drop it, you don't forget it, you don't squeeze it out. You reschedule it to a better time.

Okay, let's talk about when an emergency happens, because they do. Things get off track. It's really important to plan, but your plan isn't going to go as planned. So, when an emergency happens, let's say you're in the middle of working on whatever it is that you did have planned to work on, but a real emergency hits. Do you drop what you're doing? And if you are familiar with Monday Map, you probably know the answer to this, but you might drop what you're doing, but here's the test. If you, number one, acknowledge that it is actually a true emergency, which when you do Monday Map, one of the prep steps involved is to define an emergency. So if it is actually an emergency, and number two, you consciously relocate the thing you're dropping to a new time. And number three, you stay in integrity with your overall plan. That's the test, if you could do all three of those things. That is sagacious delay in the moment. It's not avoidance, it's leadership.

The trap to watch out for is when you use, air quotes, "emergency" as an excuse. So you pivot without rescheduling the abandoned task. You let yourself off the hook without honoring your word to yourself. You're crossing a line back into virtual procrastination. So you ask yourself, am I keeping my word to myself right now? Is this a wise delay, or am I just escaping something uncomfortable? And the last question I had written down is, did I reschedule the original task, or did I just let it fall?

I mean, these are the checkpoints. This is the pattern interrupt. Normally, people will just, they will drop what they're doing because something more important has popped up, or at least that's what they tell themselves. So, number one is trying to figure out, are you telling yourself the truth? Or are you being honest that this is actually more important? It wins. It is an emergency enough or urgent enough that it gets to pull you away from your plan. So that's number one.

And the second thing is, is this a wise delay, or am I escaping something uncomfortable? That question is everything. I mean, I could just only give you that question, and that will cut through to the truth of what is really going on. If you are willing to sit and answer that honestly, then you can start to make a shift.

These questions, I really believe high-quality questions are the key to unlocking something different for yourself. And this is a really high-quality question for the moments in your week, which is, is this a wise delay, or am I just escaping something uncomfortable? And don't just answer with your brain. Like, sit back, take a breath, and sit with that question. And even if there's not a loud voice saying, "You are lying," there may be a whisper of like, "I'm not telling the truth." Like there's something inside that tells you.

Now listen, I don't really care what you do after that. What I care about is that you get honest, because the more honest you get over time, that is when real change can happen. Until you're honest with yourself, change won't happen. So, I care more for you all as listeners and for myself that's what gets to happen. Even if you still make a choice that's not wise, you stopped and you acknowledged that it wasn't the most wise thing you could do. You are escaping something uncomfortable. Okay, well, say that out loud. Tell the truth, and then do what you want, but tell the truth first. And if you can do that, you are on your way to shifting things, to be more in line with how you want to operate and with true productivity.

So, bottom line, sagacious delay honors the plan. Even when the plan needs to shift, it honors the plan. Virtuous procrastination, on the other hand, doesn't honor anything. It just lets your momentary feelings drive the show.

So if you find yourself in the middle of a pivot in your day, pause, check in, be honest with yourself. You will absolutely feel the difference. That pause and that honesty is the very thing that will allow you to choose sagacious delay over virtuous procrastination. Without the pause, you may just head into virtuous procrastination without really even giving it conscious thought.

All right, that's it for today. Go forth and be wise about your delays. I'll see you here next Tuesday.

Hey, you may not know this, but there's a free guide for a process I teach called Monday Map Friday Wrap. If you go to velocitywork.com, it's all yours. It's about how to plan your time and honor your plans so that week over week, more work that moves the needle is getting done in less time. Go to velocitywork.com to get your free copy.

Thank you for listening to The Law Firm Owner Podcast. If you're ready to get clearer on your vision, data, and mindset, then head over to VelocityWork.com where you can plug in to quarterly Strategic Planning, with accountability and coaching in between. This is the work that creates Velocity.