Beating Procrastination

By Kaileen Arsenault
Empowerment Coach & Intuitive Needs Assistant

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Hi! Welcome to this week’s blog, where I am going to be borrowing Tik Tok viral sensation Christi Newrutzen’s popular segment, “How Long Does It Actually Take?”

Christi transparently begins each segment on her account the same way:
“Welcome to another segment of, How Long Does it Actually Take? Where I see how long it actually takes me to do something I’ve been procrastinating.” 

She then states the task, why she’s been procrastinating the task, and how long she’s been procrastinating the task. Then she begins. 

So welcome again folks, to today’s blog, How Long Does It Actually Take? Where I see how long it actually takes me to do something I’ve been procrastinating. Today we have this blog, which I frequently feel I don’t have the attention span to write, and have been procrastinating for two and half years. Let’s see how long it actually takes!

Let’s Get This Task Done

Full disclosure, I am not actually on Tik Tok. I didn’t discover Christi’s account until she had already made her way on Instagram to an impressive tune of 500k followers. The even more impressive part, Christi’s account started in 2025 with *seventy followers*.

You read that correctly. In just one year, across multiple platforms, Christi’s account grew from seventy people she knew to a 500k+ community of strangers, all people clamoring for her organizational content. Organizational content that just seemingly featured someone completing mundane daily tasks that they themselves had been procrastinating. 

So why does the way Christi tackles procrastination speak to hundreds of thousands of individuals? More importantly, what can we learn from her account to help conquer procrastination in our own lives? 

Overtaken with curiosity and inspiration, I felt motivated to share not only Christi Newrutzen’s account here today (I highly recommend following her!) but three reasons why I think she’s making such a positive impact on those who view her videos. In them, Christi is able to translate to her audience three pieces of information effectively:

1. Cleaning is a moral neutral
2. Shame is not an effective long term motivator 
3. Sometimes a little support can help shift your space

Cleaning Is A Moral Neutral  

Whether it’s due to showing up on camera just as she is, comfortable, present, and with a deadpan delivery in commitment to neutrality. Christi’s account reminds us of a human truth that often gets hidden amidst the perfection the internet demands, a part of being human is being messy. 

And if we all have the ability to be both messy and organized, how could either dictate if we are good or bad people? 

The most important message from this truth being:
How well you keep up with repetitive or cumbersome tasks in your daily life is not a reflection of who you are.

Which brings us to our next point. An emotion I’ve actually blogged about before and how this feeling uniquely can show up in your home, shame.

Shame: The Not So Effective Motivator 

Does shame motivate? Yes.
Does it motivate effectively for long term sustainability? Heck to the no.

A noticeable feature of Christi’s account:
The absence of shame and judgment.

Why is shame an ineffective motivator? Because it shifts the focus from behavior improvement to self-worth. What this means is, in order to actually motivate you, shame must activate the brain’s threat system. While in the short term this may seem like a viable solution, asking the brain to use shame to produce the chemicals needed to motivate will lead to burn out, low self-worth, and ultimately isolation.

Instead Christi invites her audience to witness the neutrality she holds towards her own procrastination. And it’s this exact neutrality and comradery that allows for the mindset shift that can take a person from feeling:

“I am a bad person because it has taken me two days to unload the dishwasher.”
to
“I feel good now that the task is done. How long I waited to start the task says nothing about how good I am as a person.”

Even Superheroes Need Support 

Which brings us to our last point that is so beautifully illustrated across Christi’s account:
Sometimes we all find ourselves in need of a little support.

Along with Christi’s regular segment where she tackles and times tasks in her own home for her followers, she also features a slightly different segment where she does the same formula, but for a friend or family member that’s been stuck on their own task in their own home. 

In these transformations, these videos, Christi really illustrates the power of connection over shame. She offers her family and friends the same neutrality and judgment free space she offers herself and they knock out the task together.

Maybe by this point you’ve pictured a few spots in your home that you’ve been procrastinating tackling. Or maybe you’ve had a to-do list of a variety of tasks growing for a while (no judgment remember!) and you too would benefit from having support on your journey of tackling them. 

My Intuitive Needs service offered at Wellness & Co. provides just that. Support when you need it. Intuitive Needs is a unique in-home service where I work with my clients to tackle tasks that have been keeping them stuck.

If you’ve been curious about what it may be like to work with a professional organizer and figure out How Long Does It Actually Take to declutter spaces in your home, I offer a free fifteen minute consultation for my Intuitive Needs Service. I’d love to connect!

To wrap this blog up the How Long Does It Actually Take way:
The total time it took me to brainstorm, write, and roughly edit this blog, which I had been procrastinating for two and a half years, was an hour and fifty seven minutes.

Chat again soon,
Kaileen

Kaileen Arsenault( Intuitive Needs Assistant )

Kaileen helps individuals bring organization into their home. A personal assistant with an intuitive touch. She helps reduce clutter and chaos and replaces it with lightness and possibilities. Working with highly productive individuals, working mama’s, and busy families, Kaileen shines when you let her intuition execute your visions.

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