Is this you?
You think about writing that LinkedIn post today or drafting your email newsletter to send to your list tomorrow. Or you’re finally going to get to that blog post that you’re excited about out of your head and onto the page.
But life gets in the way an dtoday turns into tomorrow, which then turns into next week. Rather than fight it any more, you tell yourself, “I’ll start fresh next month.”
This definitely sounds familiar, right? And if so, please know you’re not alone, nor am I here to makey ou feel bad or guilty. This used to me, after all (and sometimes, it still is!).
But I am here to tell you that “I’ll do it tomorrow” is one of the most expensive things you can say to yourself for your business. And most people have no idea what it’s actually costing them.
Here’s something that might make you feel better, at least temporarily: procrastinating on content is incredibly common among small business owners.
According to research from Constant Contact, more than half of small businesses routinely put off marketing in favor of other activities. And when they ranked the most time-consuming marketing tasks? Planning and strategy came in at number two. The things that take the most time are also the things most likely to get pushed aside.
The same research found that 56% of small business owners have an hour or less per day to spend on marketing. So the cycle makes sense. You’re busy and marketing feels like a lot. So you tell yourself you’ll do it when things slow down.
Except things never slow down. You know this already.
Feeling like you’re not alone is useful, but it doesn't create a solution. And the truth is, just because everyone is putting off their content doesn't mean it's not costing you. It is.
Nobody sends you an invoice when you skip a week of posting. There’s no line item that says “missed content: $400.” So it’s easy to assume it doesn’t really cost anything.
But the cost is real. It’s just not easy to always see. So let's break down some of those costs.
The visibility cost.
Your audience has a short memory. When you go quiet, they don’t wonder where you went. They just move on. And while you’re off the grid, someone else in your space is showing up consistently, building trust, and becoming the name people think of first. Visibility is competitive, even when it doesn’t feel that way.
The momentum cost.
Content works through compounding. A blog post drives traffic next week, next month, and potentially next year. An email you send consistently builds a relationship over time. But when you stop and start, you reset the clock. You don’t pick up where you left off. You begin again, and again, and again. That’s exhausting and inefficient, and it’s exactly why it always feels so hard.
The credibility cost.
This one is subtle but it’s real. If a prospective client finds you online and clicks over to your blog, and the last post is from eight months ago, what does that tell them? It tells them you’re not active. It raises questions. Consistency in your content signals that you’re reliable, engaged, and invested in your business. Inconsistency signals the opposite, even if that’s not the truth.
But this is what’s so critical to understand about content procrastination: it’s not a discipline problem.
I’ve worked with small business owners for 17 years, and the ones who struggle to publish consistently are not lazy. They are not bad at marketing. They are not missing some creative gene that other people have.
They’re missing a plan. It sounds simple, and it is. It’s also true.
Without a plan, every piece of content starts from zero. You sit down and have to figure out what to write, who it’s for, what you want it to do, and how it fits into the bigger picture —all in one sitting. That’s a lot to carry. So you don’t. You close the Word or Google doc and do the other things on your list instead.
That’s not procrastination.That’s a predictable response to an unmanageable system.
The research backs this up. Small businesses with a marketing plan are 6.7 times more likely to report marketing success than those without one. Not twice as likely. Not three times.6.7 times. (Source: SimpleTexting/Constant Contact, 2024)
The plan is the difference. Not the talent. Not the time. The plan.
Motivation itself won’t resolve the challenge because motivation is unreliable. It’s high in January and gone by March, just ask all those gym-goers with New Years Resolutions. For you, it could show up on a good day and disappear because a client emergency eats your afternoon.
What works instead is a systemyou can follow even when you don’t feel like it, along with the accountability to ensure you follow through.
In my experience, the clients who publish consistently aren’t the most creative people I know. They’re the most organized. They know what they’re publishing, when they’re publishing it, and why each piece matters to their business. They made those decisions ahead of time, not in the moment when everything else is competing for their attention.
That’s what a content plan gives you. Not more hours in your day, but a way to use the hours you havewithout starting from scratch every time.
If any of this feels like yourlife, I built something for you.
The 7-Day Content Maximizer Challenge is a free, one-email-a-day challenge that walks you through building a 30-day content plan in about 20 minutes a day. By the end of the week, you’ll know what you’re publishing, who it’s for, and what job it’s doing for your business.
No more staring at a blankpage. No more skipping weeks because you don’t know what to say. Just a plan you can actually follow
Sign up here. Round 2 starts May 11!