Are you seduced by the deep dark hole of procrastination when it comes to your finances? You know the one- it looks like binge-watching Netflix and eating Nutella on potato chips instead of filing your receipts and doing your bookkeeping.

Yea, so am I.

But sometimes I just have to peel yourself away from Love Island (just me?) and actually deal with the money stuff. Here are my best tips for getting yourself out of a procrastination hole when it comes to your business finances.

Stop shaming yourself

There’s a lot of shame around money, especially when we don’t think we know what we’re doing. This shame and fear cause us to become overwhelmed and we put off starting the things that scare us.

Once we do get started, we’re so ashamed that we didn’t start earlier or that everyone is so much ahead of us that we stop. And this becomes a cycle that keeps us from working on our finances.

One thing to keep in mind is that we all start somewhere and each of us is starting from a different place. That said, so many other self-employed business owners feel like they’re lost and behind too. That means you are not alone and you’re actually further along than you think!

Instead of putting yourself down for not working on your money, remind yourself that where you are right now is JUST THE START of your journey. And whoever got shamed for standing at the beginning of a trail? No one.

Tiny little actions

One trick to help you get started on your finances is to do one small thing for your money a day. This doesn’t have to be a large project or tedious task, just something that will help you stay engaged with your money.

This trick isn’t just practical (the more small tasks you do now, the less you have to do later), but it also bridges the relationships between you and your finances and helps make them a part of your everyday life.

Just start

What if you’re really really behind? Should you wait to catch up before starting a new system? No! Just start. The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be to start any system.

Start with the thing you’re actually going to do. Often we wait for the perfect system that is light years beyond what we can start on right now. When starting, consider what’s accessible to you now and what you actually want to start.

The other benefit to just starting? You’ll have your systems set up, so when you do go back to catch up on your finances, you’ll have all your systems ready to go.

Starting slow is okay

Sometimes, what we have to get through to start dealing with our money takes more time than actually dealing with our money. And that’s okay! There’s a lot of emotional stuff around money and you may need to take it slow before you jump right in.

We all need to start somewhere and sometimes we need to start doing just a little bit so we can work through our emotional hurdles.

Celebrate yourself for your money wins

Do you ever accomplish something and then immediately move on to the next thing without a pause? Me too! It’s so common for self-employed to feel so overwhelmed by the endless to-do list that we don’t ever pause to say, “Hey you! You just rocked your bookkeeping.”

Especially with money, it’s so important to celebrate ourselves for even the tiniest of wins because money is already SO loaded with self-judgment. Celebrating ourselves helps us keep going and gives our inner money rockstar a place to shine.

The thing about procrastination is that it’s a cycle. The longer you stay in a procrastination hole, the harder it is to get yourself out. But, the flip side is also true. Once you build momentum around working on your money, you’ll find that it’s easy to keep going. So the ROI of no longer procrastinating on your money is HUGE. Plus, you can still binge-watch Netflix. Just do your bookkeeping while you’re at it.