65: You're Not Procrastinating, You're Just Stuck (And You Can Fix It!) With Executive Function Coach Sarah Lovell
The executive function coach who will finally explain why you can't just start the thing.
You know that feeling where you have something you genuinely want to do, you know exactly how to do it, there’s a deadline, someone’s waiting on you, and you are still just... sitting there? Unable to make your hands do the thing?
We’re talking about that exact feeling today.
Sarah Lovell has been an executive function coach for 12 years.
She helps women in business with time management, organizing, planning, and systems; and she’s here to tell you something that might actually change your life:
You’re not procrastinating. You’re stuck. And those are not the same thing.
Rapid-Fire Squirrel Brain Questions
Here’s what we learned about Eden in her round of squirrel brain questions:
If she could gather “nuts” like a squirrel: Photos of her sleeping dogs. Every single day. Different positions, different vibes, always equally devastating in their cuteness. She has a pit bull named Georgia and a 12-year-old Weimaraner.
If she had to get one phrase tattooed on her face: "Be here now." She's been on a mindfulness journey: working on staying present, noticing when her brain drifts to the past or the future, and being intentional about phone use in a world designed to pull you out of the moment. She wants it for herself in the mirror every morning, but also as a gentle reminder to everyone she's talking to.
If there were a museum about her, what would be in the gift shop: Quirky mismatched mugs: all from places she's traveled or gifted by people she loves, because a good mug is a sensory experience and she is a tea-all-day girly. Also stationery, planners, and the best pens (cute ones, not just functional ones, little animals on top, that kind of thing). And a sign in front of the stationery station that reads: it's okay to buy this planner and only use it for two weeks. Which is the most healing thing anyone has ever said about planners coming from a squirrel that gets it.
Her walkout song: DJ Earworm's “United States of Pop 2009” — a mashup that contains literally everyone from that era. Kelly Clarkson, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Kings of Leon, Flo Rida. She graduated high school in 2009. It transports her to another life phase every single time and I’m here for it
What Is Executive Function, Actually?
Before we get into the good stuff, let’s define our terms — because “executive functioning” sounds like something that only applies to offices and school assignments, and it absolutely does not.
“Executive functioning” is the set of skills your brain uses every single day to do literally everything. Planning. Organizing. Prioritizing. Task switching. Getting started. Sustained attention. Flexible thinking. It covers your work, your hobbies, your relationships, your self-care. All of it.
Every single person uses and needs executive function skills. Some people just experience more intense and chronic challenges with them — and that’s where the phrase “executive dysfunction” comes in. It’s a spectrum, and where you land on it changes what tools and strategies are actually going to work for you.
Here’s the problem: we were all given the exact same toolkit in school. Write a to-do list. Keep a calendar. Set an alarm on your phone. That’s it. And for a huge percentage of people, those tools range from mildly unhelpful to completely useless — because we were all given the same systems but not the same brains.
So when the systems don’t work, people assume the problem is them. It’s not. It’s a mismatch.
You’re Not Procrastinating. You’re Stuck.
This is the reframe I want you to carry out of this episode and use for the rest of your life.
Procrastinating means you don’t want to do the thing. And yes, everyone procrastinates sometimes. There are genuinely tasks you don’t want to do and you keep not doing them and that’s procrastination.
But the majority of the time? You do want to do it. You’re excited about it. You have ideas about it. You just can’t start it. And that’s not procrastination, that’s being stuck. And being stuck has an iceberg of reasons underneath it that “just do it” will never fix.
Sarah’s whole coaching philosophy starts here: self-talk is the foundation of executive functioning. Before any system or strategy or tool, she’s asking: what is your brain telling you?
Because your brain might be telling you things like:
I have to do this perfectly or there’s no point
Once I send this email everything else will explode
I’ve avoided this for so long that starting it now means confronting how long I avoided it
What if this goes well and then I have more to manage than I can handle
None of those are procrastination.
All of them are your brain trying to protect you from discomfort. And if you keep calling it procrastination, you’ll keep trying to solve the wrong problem.
Why You Can’t Start (The Real Categories)
Sarah breaks down the most common reasons people get stuck into a few categories, and I guarantee at least one of these is going to hit:
Mental and emotional discomfort. This is the big one. Perfectionism — if I can’t do it right, what’s the point. Fear of failure. Fear of success (what if this works and now I have more to manage). Avoiding the shame or frustration from a past experience with this task. And the sneaky one: guilt for not starting sooner, which makes you avoid it even more, which makes the guilt worse, which makes you avoid it more. The spiral is real and it is exhausting.
Clarity and decision-making challenges. Your brain can see the finish line. It’s excited about the finish line. But it cannot identify a single clear starting point, so it just... stalls. Analysis paralysis. Too many decisions. Fear of picking the wrong first step and leaving all the other options behind. This is not a motivation problem. This is a navigation problem.
Decision fatigue. We only have so much capacity for making decisions in a day. And most women — especially moms, especially solo business owners — are making decisions for themselves and everyone else around them from the moment they wake up. By 2 p.m., the tank is empty and nothing is getting decided. This is not a character flaw. This is a resource management problem.
The domino effect. Sarah shared a client story that made me go oh. The client couldn’t send one email. Not because she didn’t want to, not because she didn’t know what to say, but because sending that email was going to kick off fifteen other things, and her brain was already overwhelmed by the thought of all of them. So the email just sat there. Her brain wasn’t avoiding the email. It was avoiding everything the email would unlock.
What to Actually Do About It
Okay, we’ve named the problem. Now what?
Name it to tame it. This sounds like a therapy thing that feels too simple to work. It’s not. It’s legitimate neuroscience from psychologist Dr. Dan Siegel. When you name what you’re experiencing — the emotion, the self-talk, the specific flavor of stuck you’re in — your nervous system actually settles. Your brain does a little shoulders-down exhale. That’s not magic. That’s how brains work.
Stop eating the frog. If you have ADHD, the advice to “do the hardest thing first” is not for you. Starting with your biggest priority puts so much pressure on the task that your brain just refuses. You cannot go from zero to 60 like that. You need momentum first.
Instead: Small tasks. Things that take less than ten minutes and give you quick dopamine hits and build the evidence that hey, look at you, you’re doing stuff. My version of this is tiny tasks before 10: ten minutes of small, completable tasks every morning to signal to your brain that you’re capable and in motion before the big stuff begins.
Create a healthy time crunch. Parkinson’s Law says that work expands to fill whatever time you give it. If you have all day, the task will take all day. If you have 45 minutes before your next anchor point, it might actually get done.
Sarah helps clients build anchor points into their days: natural transition moments that create shorter, more manageable work blocks. A morning routine that ends at 9am. A dog walk at 11. Lunch at noon. These aren’t restrictions. They’re the structure that tells your brain: this is the window, let’s go.
Match your task to your energy type. Not just high energy vs. low energy — actual types of energy. Creative energy. Problem-solving energy. Social energy. Administrative energy. Physical energy.
If you’re creatively fried at 3pm, don’t try to write. But you might still have enough admin energy to update a spreadsheet, answer emails, or organize your files. You’re still moving things forward. You’re just matching the work to what your brain actually has available.
Use a visual timer. Time blindness is real. When your brain can’t feel how long something is going to take, it tends to assume forever. A visual timer — something you can actually see counting down — changes that. It makes time feel concrete. And it reminds you that discomfort is temporary. Five minutes of uncomfortable is just five minutes. You can do five minutes.
Make the reward actually worth it. Yes, reward yourself. No, don’t let yourself have it early. And make the reward match the effort — a Hershey’s Kiss is not the right reward for a full day of hard work. A margarita might be. Scale accordingly.
The Thing Almost Every Woman Business Owner Deals With
I asked Sarah what the most common thread is across all her clients, and she didn’t even hesitate: perfectionism.
Not because perfectionists are broken.
Because they started their businesses doing something they’re really good at and really love — and when you care that much, the perfectionism follows. You want the perfect system. The perfect schedule. The perfect priority. And because there is no perfect anything, the search for it becomes its own form of avoidance.
The fix isn’t to stop caring. It’s to practice giving up a little control in some areas so you can genuinely invest in the ones that actually deserve your full attention. Not everything gets a hundred percent. And once you get okay with that, the paralysis starts to loosen.
Working With Sarah
Sarah does one-on-one and small group executive function coaching through her business, Executive Functioning First. If you’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on in your brain and why the systems everyone recommends aren’t working for you, she’s your person.
She also has a podcast called From Stuck to Started — all about creating simple, realistic systems that actually fit your brain and your life. If you like this one, you’re going to love that one.
Find her at executivefunctioningfirst.com and go find From Stuck to Started wherever you listen to podcasts.
POINT OF THE STORY
Stop trying to squeeze yourself into tools and strategies that weren’t made for you, and start asking: what actually works for how I’m wired?
Love you, mean it. 🖤
SARAH LINKS
— Follow Sarah on Instagram and Threads
— Check out her website
— Learn about her 1:1 coaching and group coaching
— Grab her freebie, The ADHD Action Plan
— Tune in to her podcast, From Stuck to Started
— Her walkout song
BTL LINKS
— Use code “MILLIONAIRE” for $100 off my website copywriting course, Site Series Sprint.
— Join the Point of the Story community on Slack.
— Leave feedback or episode requests in our Suggestions Box.
— To stay up to date with all things Point of the Story, follow on Instagram and Substack.
— Follow me on Instagram, Threads, and Substack.
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— Check out my website betweenthelinescopy.com.
OTHER LINKS
— Past episode: How to Keep Promises to Yourself (Even With ADHD)
This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz.