PRODUCTIVITY HACKS — SOLUTION FOR EVERY PROBLEM

Don’t Ignore Your Most Important Task — Avoid Productive Procrastination Trap

Productive procrastination can be an opportunity or a trap — depending on how you tweak it

Head of Sales John Silva was having an extremely productive day. From the morning till 4 PM, he had attended 6 internal meetings discussing overall company strategy & optimization and completed one report for the region. John is now going to sit with his analytics team to discuss a dashboard for his field force. It’s a great day for him right? Well, it depends.

John Silva’s company is way behind its revenue target. John knows that he needs to visit a few large customers and that’d increase the chances of more revenue. He knows he should focus on his sales strategy. John understands that he has to work more closely with his field team. But, he is postponing all of that for other activities. He is deprioritizing his important tasks.

Although John is staying busy, he is in fact engaging in productive procrastination.

What is Productive Procrastination?

Productive Procrastination is the act of staying busy with tasks while ignoring the most important tasks.

For example, your car brake is giving trouble. You need to take that to the garage for repair. Instead of doing that, if you spend hours washing and polishing the car and go out to buy new accessories for the car, you’d be staying busy with the car. But you will be ignoring the most important task at hand.

The Science Behind Procrastination

According to Nesslabs, procrastination doesn’t only happen because we are lazy. Its reasons are rooted in our biology. Our limbic system, one of the most dominant portions of the brain, processes activities that are mostly automatic. The prefrontal cortex, a newer & less developed portion of the brain, plans complex behaviors, expresses our personality, and makes things happen. Dr. Tim Pychyl, a psychology professor and the author of Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Concise Guide to Strategies for Change (affiliate link), said that the limbic system prefers immediate reward. Procrastination is often a battle between an immediate reward and potential future benefits. As the limbic system is dominant, it often overpowers the prefrontal cortex and we choose what feels good for now.

How to handle Productive Procrastination

The preparation

It’s essential to understand what’s of more priority. A quick and dirty starting point can be the Eisenhower metrics. Eisenhower/Ike Metrics is the process of classifying tasks based on their importance and urgency. It’s recommended to only do activities that are important and delegate/delete the rest.

For example:

Fixing your car's brake is both urgent and important. But washing, polishing and buying accessories doesn't seem urgent. They might not even be important at this point of time. So, you'll know to focus first on the brake and then, if time permits, do the other activities.

The execution

It’s often the most difficult to start a job — especially with tougher jobs. You should divide that task into multiple manageable tasks and then follow the POMODORO technique to get it done. POMODORO is the method of working for a 25-min slot and then taking a short 5 min break. You’d then get back into another 25-min slot and continue the same process 3–4 times.

For example:

You can divide the task of fixing a car's brake into 3 parts. First would be to research where to go and book an appointment. Then to drive there. And lastly to leave the car & eventually pick it up

The multitasking

Problem is, life is complicated. It keeps on throwing multiple “urgent” jobs at us. We might not be able to avoid multitasking at all. In that case, you should follow what Jack Dorsey does. He has created themed days to focus on one broad topic in a day. You can create themed hours in a day to handle different types of activities.

For example:

In today's busy world, it might not be possible for you to spend a weekday on a car. You can dedicate first half of Saturday's for your asset management. 

The productive procrastination

Eventually, a strict routine will get monotonous. Doing the same type of work will make you feel efficient yet bored. Productive procrastination can help you there. You can run 2 important projects at once. Whenever you’d get bored with one, you can switch on to the other one. That’d keep things interesting.

For example:

On a Saturday morning, you might not feel like driving your car to a repair shop. On that day, you are also supposed to catch up with some friends for lunch, do laundry, take your kids to park in the afternoong. You can switch things around. Maybe you can have a breakfast/brunch with friends. You can also take your kids to a morning activity. Then in the afternoon, you can send your car to the shop.

To summarize — Productive procrastination is not all bad

If you know how to use it to keep the ball rolling, it can be a great asset for you. But if you use it to shield yourself from other activities, then you might be in trouble.

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