If you are into productivity, you likely have a todo list.
You also know the important tasks and likely have a plan for the next few weeks, months or even years.
Stellar.
I mean you show up everyday. Some days you get a lot done and other days are rough, slow and lazy.
No biggie. At least you show up daily.
But let’s pause for a moment.
A new type of procrastination
Do you find yourself rearranging items on your todo list for that day so it looks perfect?
What about refreshing your email every 7 minutes to see if you can respond to a new email rapidly?
I don’t know about you but as a creator and software developer, I have the tweaking and re-tweaking fix to resolve the stubborn CSS div on this blog so I can have the perfect-landing-page.
And to be honest, I’ve been working on the same page for a tad-bit too long.
You know it. I know it. And yeah, yeah, whatever. There’s still sharing of my work to do.
And writing.
And creating email list.
👉 This is structured procrastination at work.
It's well discussed by Dan Ariely (A famous Prof in the field of Behavioral Economics).
We spend lots of time on simple, easy-to-accomplish tasks and never getting to the important ones.
Because crossing off the simple ones give everyone a ✨dopamine boost✨ and makes you feel productive. But you are not.
Procrastinating by finishing small, easy tasks
You’d do anything to suppress that guilt that you should be working on another task — the important one.
How about finishing an item that you didn’t have on your list.
- Add it to your list.
- Then cross it off.
- Oh the feels 🥰.
“Didn’t come here to be attacked like that”
I know.
But:
- 🌟Awareness is the first step.
- 🏃♂️Taking action is next.
- 🧐Always ask yourself: “what major task am I avoiding especially when you're finishing lots of simple todo items?”
Thanks for reading
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Heads Up - I love research so I tend to back my advice and approach with concepts from Behavioral Psychology and Neuroscience.