Solocrastinate: The Art of Procrastinating Like a Productive Solo Founder

If you’re reading this instead of doing that one important task on your list - congrats, you’re Solocrastinating.

Solocrastinate (v.): To creatively delay real work by convincing yourself that busy work is the work.

It’s not laziness. It’s… entrepreneurial foreplay. And I’m coining it. 

Born from the union of solo entrepreneurship, productivity guilt, and high-functioning avoidance, Solocrastination is what happens when your Notion dashboards multiply faster than your income, and your 47 browser tabs are all labelled “research.”

And here’s the twist: it’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

🤷 Why We Solocrastinate

Solopreneurs, freelancers, and creators don’t have bosses - they have existential dread. And that turns into:

• Tab-hoarding: “I’ll read those 19 newsletters later” (you won’t).

• Fake productivity: You redesigned your logo but haven’t sent an invoice since June.

• Creative spiraling: “I’m brainstorming.” Translation: You’re stuck in a loop of Canva > Reddit > coffee > back to Canva.

But you’re not broken. You’re just processing. Sometimes, your brain isn’t ready to “do the thing” yet — so it finds something safer to chew on instead.

🔎 Up Close and Personal 

Trust me, I’ve lived it. My bookmarks folder alone could be diagnosed with something - multiple folders, subfolders, colour tags… If someone ever audited my Chrome history, they’d find a genius-in-progress or a man lost in digital chaos. I’d say I’m somewhere in the middle. Probably.

When I lost my job last year, it felt like the ground disappeared beneath me. I was new to the US, had no network, no roadmap - just a lot of hope and a pile of rejection emails (when they even bothered to send one). The silence after hitting “Submit Application” 137 times? Deafening.

I didn’t need money right away, so I gave myself permission to think. What else could I do? Could I start something new? Cue the Solocrastination: deep dives into newsletters, redesigning logos for businesses I hadn’t launched yet, tinkering with Notion templates until 2am.

Was it productive? Questionable.

Was it necessary? Absolutely.

🥊 My (Mis)Diagnosis Journey

In the past few years, it seems like everyone and their uncle is getting an ADHD diagnosis. Neurodivergence isn’t just a “quirky tech founder” thing anymore - it’s your cousin Milly, your neighbour Bob, and probably your lizard Olive, too.

I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. It explained a lot - the spirals, the hyperfixations, the inability to “just do the thing.” I threw everything at it: therapy, mindfulness, breathing exercises, and eventually medication (not the trendy kind - the properly prescribed kind).

But something still didn’t sit right.

Turns out, I was misdiagnosed. After hours of therapy and a whole lot of reflection, I was diagnosed with cPTSD - a condition that often mimics ADHD in testing. Unlike PTSD (typically triggered by a single traumatic event), cPTSD builds over time through repeated emotional or psychological stress.

It’s not fun. It’s not trendy. But it was the missing piece of the puzzle.

Understanding that changed everything. My “procrastination” wasn’t laziness or poor discipline - it was my brain trying to stay safe. That insight became my starting point for a new relationship with productivity.

🧠 A Mental Rebrand

I stopped trying to “fix” my brain. I started treating it like a buggy alpha release - early-stage, full of potential, with messy comments in the margins.

That’s when things shifted. I stopped fighting Solocrastination and started collaborating with it.

Here’s how to work with it - and maybe even profit from it.

1. 🔎 Interrogate the Pause

Before you beat yourself up for “being behind,” ask why you’re resisting the task. Are you overwhelmed? Unsure of the first step? Bored? Fearful?

Label the feeling. Name it. You can’t manage what you can’t see.

2. 🛠 Make Procrastination Productive

If you’re going to delay, do something useful while avoiding the big thing.

Can’t start that pitch deck? Clean your CRM. Reorganise your notes. Write a sarcastic tweet that might go viral. Go for a walk and engage different circuits in your brain. 

3. 🧩 Shrink the Task

“Launch product” is a panic-inducing mountain. 

Panic = overwhelm = I’m watching YouTube videos = OMG I am a failure.

“Write 1 sentence of landing page copy” is doable.

Momentum compounds. The smaller the step, the easier it is to start.

P. S. If you haven’t heard of the “eat the frog” method, just know that this is the exact opposite of it. And that’s OK! Different strokes for different folks. 

4. 💤 Schedule Guilt-Free Downtime

Sometimes you’re not unproductive. You’re tired. Your brain’s telling you to rest - and if you ignore it, you’ll burn out and miss the deadline.

Build in naps. Seriously. Naps are what fuel the creative process. They should be mandatory. 

5. 🧰 Use a System That’s Built for Your Brain

If your Notion setup looks like a pilot’s cockpit, simplify it. Use a pre-built, neurodivergent-friendly workspace that lets you track your “fake work” and real priorities in one place.

👉 Download the free “Solocrastination-Friendly Notion Template” from Solofrayed.com

It’s designed for procrastinators, tab hoarders, and digital tinkerers. Start tracking what matters without overengineering your life. It helped me, so I hope it can also help you!

✨ The Beauty of Solocrastination

Procrastination isn’t a flaw. It’s your brain’s version of buffering.

Sometimes, the best ideas come while you’re doing something completely unrelated. Personally, the best ideas come to me when I’m outside walking. Not only it’s great to be outside and enjoy the fresh air, but it helps my brain work through problems differently and engage creative thinking you didn’t know you even had in your toolbox. Solocrastination is that magical in-between - where creativity, avoidance, and ambition hang out together in your browser history.

It’s not the cleanest workflow, but it’s often the most honest.

So if you find yourself reformatting your calendar instead of launching your course…

If your to-do list has sublists and those sublists have colour-coded feelings…

Just remember - you’re not alone. You’re a solocrastinator. And there’s a whole tribe of us building great things - very, very slowly. Sometimes we even finish!

🔔 Final Thought

To Solocrastinate is to be human in an algorithmic world.

So go ahead - open that 49th tab. Just make sure one of them is Solofrayed.com, because if you’re going to procrastinate, you might as well do it with me (and maybe make some money while you’re at it).