Pod Insights Jocko Podcast DEF 05: How To Stop Procrastination and Stop Laziness About this episode Procrastination is one of the biggest obstacles in the way of your success... in anything. This is how you overcome procrastination.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Jocko Willink? This is the Discipline Equals Freedom, episode five, sitting here with Echo Charles. As the deaf reset, the Discipline Equals Freedom reset approached, I thought to myself about my life and what helped me with discipline. And there was a juncture in my life when I was, I don't want to say addicted to, but I was kind of addicted to checklists. And if I had to do something, I wrote it down. I didn't, I wanted to be a good SEAL. And therefore, if I got tasked with something, I didn't want to not do what I was tasked to do. So I wrote it down with a little, I would draw a little box next to it. A little checklist box, you know what I'm saying? Did you ever do that? So you could check it? Literally check the boxes, right? Did you ever do that? No. Okay.
0:45 Jocko Willink? I kind of really got addicted to checking the boxes and it was a very useful tool for me. Especially at that time in my life, when I had a lot of tasks that were like immediate tactical level tasks, like you've got to do this, you've got to prep the radios, you've got to contact this, you've got to get this printer cartridge ordered, like legitimate things like that in life. I have less things like that now, a lot less things like that right now in my life. Because people on my team, we have decentralized command and a lot of that stuff's happening. So I'm kind of doing more big muscle movement, strategic things over time. So I kind of know what I have to do. But as I was thinking about trying to help people get on a discipline path,
1:30 Jocko Willink? I know that that was a huge tool that I used in my life. So I called Jamie and Jen and I was like, hey, and this was maybe, it was kind of like mid-December, it was way late. And I said, hey, what do you think, do you think we could get together like a planner to help people with this? And they, they said, yep, we can do it. I said, how fast do you think we can turn it around? And Jen and Jamie are awesome. They said, yep, we can get it done. We will get it done. So they got it done.
2:00 Jocko Willink? It's a little planner, right? A basic planner, which is something cooler. Quarterly planner, take action. That's what the thing is about. Inside of it, it has weekly, weekly priorities, daily tasks, daily habits. You can track all this stuff. And then there's a section, this was kind of the, the brainstorm. This is the, what I really wanted was I wanted you to be able to see your strategic goals every day. So you don't lose track of those, right? Because as I said on one of these podcasts a while ago, it's like, you don't see any progress in one day in the gym. You don't see any progress with one day of your diet. You don't see any progress in one day of practicing your guitar. You don't see any progress in one day of jujitsu.
2:42 Jocko Willink? But a hundred days, you're a different person. You can play any song on guitar. You look totally different if you've maintained your discipline with your gym and your diet and everything else. So, it's easy to lose track of that. So the way we designed this thing, every day, when you look at your daily tasks, you're also going to see your strategic goals. So that's what it is. And we made it. It's PDF. You can get it from PDF. You can also get it from just echelonfront.com. They sold out really quick. We're making more of them. But more important, as we were talking about the design of the book, I said on the cover, they were like, oh, should we just put echelonfront? What should we do? And I said, no, on the cover, just put the words execute, execute, execute.
3:27 Jocko Willink? Just put the words execute, execute, execute. And that's what we did. And they did it in red, which I didn't advise, but they got it right because it looks badass. And those are, those are the front, colors of the front are black, white, red, maybe some gray in there. But it comes, where execute, execute comes from is from going on missions in the SEAL teams and you go out and you'd conduct a direct action mission, which means you're going to take down a building or a series of buildings or a city block or whatever. And when we'd roll up to those targets, I'd be, if I was the ground force commander, meaning the overall guy in charge, as we approached the target, we'd get to a certain point where it's go time and I would get on the radio, I'd key the radio and I'd just say, execute, execute, execute.
4:10 Jocko Willink? And that's, that meant everything is going. That means we're going to do what we came to do.
4:17 Jocko Willink? And that's why I wanted it on the cover because the biggest problems that we have and you and I were talking about this before we hit record. The biggest problem isn't coming up with the plan. The biggest problem isn't knowing what we should do or what we shouldn't do. The biggest problem is execution. That's the biggest problem that people have. How to overcome procrastination? How to actually do the thing that you set out to do? So we gotta watch out for that. Going to the book here, going to the discipline equals freedom field manual. Real quick here, let me read, let me, let me just go. Uh, talking about overcoming procrastination, when and where to start. And this is what I wrote in this book. People want to know how to stop laziness.
5:02 Jocko Willink? They want to know how to stop procrastination. They have an idea in their head, maybe even a vision. And by the way, I have that in italics. Sure. You know, a vision, because people have those. Yeah. A vision. Hell yeah. But they don't know where to go. They don't know where to start. So they ask, where do I start? When is the best time to start? And I have a simple answer. Here and now. That's it. Here and now. Want to improve? Want to get better? You want to get on a workout program or a clean diet or start a new business? You want to write a book or make a movie or build a house or a computer or an app? Where do you start? You start right here. When do you start? You start right now. You initiate action. You go.
5:46 Jocko Willink? Straightforward. Look, could this be a, a, a 13 page chapter in a book? What I just said? Could, it could be. Does it need to be? No, it doesn't need to be. Cause I'm telling you what the answer is right now. I'm not shrouding it in mystery. I'm not trying to convince you that there's some way of making this happen, which isn't true, by the way. Meditating on it isn't going to help you. Continuing to plan and doing branch plans and contingency plans. That's not actually going to help you at all to get started. Back to the book. Here's the reality. That idea isn't going to execute itself. That book isn't going to write itself. Those weights out in the gym, they aren't going to lift themselves.
6:29 Jocko Willink? You have to do it. And you have to do it now. So stop thinking about it. Stop dreaming about it. Stop researching every aspect of it and reading all about it and debating the pros and cons of it. Start doing it.
6:45 Jocko Willink? That is the first step to make it happen. Get after it and get after it here and now. So that's what I wrote in the book and that's what execute means.
7:00 Jocko Willink? In the context of your life, execute, execute, execute means do it now, do it now, do it now. That's what it means and this is what you have to do.
7:11 Jocko Willink? Do it now. You and I were talking before we hit record, do it now. That's what you have to do. Do it now. When? Now. Where? Now. Here. Now. That's how you have to transform your brain. Never mind the fonts, never mind the plans, never mind the negotiations, never mind the little words, never mind the self-talk and hyping yourself up, never mind the rationalizations. No, do it now, do it now, do it now. Execute, execute, execute, execute, execute, execute. That's what you need to do.
7:43 Jocko Willink? That's what we're doing.
7:46 Jocko Willink? That's the discipline.
7:49 Jocko Willink? Go to thedefreset.com, jockofuel.com, originusa.com, echelonfront.com, jockostore.com. Get on the path. We'll talk to you later. Out.
Previous 419: Training, Discipline, and The Battlefield of Life. With Leif Babin. Next Jocko Underground: Are You Being Sociopathic? Page updated September 29, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
