Masking procrastination with work [Hack Your Day]
Procrastination is definitely the evil brother of productivity. While it doesn’t necessarily mean you do nothing, it means that you concentrate on things you don’t need to do, or don’t need to do now.
I’ve noticed in my daily routine a special kind of procrastination, which would probably be called borderline procrastination if I had to put a medical term to it. Often when I have to do some work I don’t feel like doing, I will actually go off and do something else, that is still work, but not that important. If I decide for example to write a huge roundup of email applications, I may get bored and start writing another, short post. This is a kind of procrastination, because you are not doing what you’re supposed to, you are giving yourself only the feeling of work, while in fact, you are just escaping your tasks.
This is probably more common than I expect, but since theoretically you are still working I would guess most people don’t notice this, or don’t really think about it as something counter-productive. In some contexts it could raise your productivity by changing your setting, but in most cases people are just trying to get away with not doing work.
My suggestion, if you suffer from this, is to phase it out gradually, as this is a behavioral trait. When you decide to switch to a different kind of work, just work on it for five more minutes and then change. Next week, continue working for 10 minutes and so on and so forth. After a month or so, you will be able to phase out this type of distraction, and hopefully you will be more productive every day.
Original post here: Daniel
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