Don't Fall Into the Trap of 'Precrastination' - Deepstash
Managing People

Learn more about personaldevelopment with this collection

Conflict resolution

Motivating and inspiring others

Delegation

Managing People

Discover 57 similar ideas in

It takes just

7 mins to read

What is ‘precrastination’?

Described as “the hastening of subgoal completion, even at the expense of extra physical effort,” but it can apply to tasks (like office work) that don’t involve physical labor.

Basically, you precrastinate if you opt to put in extra effort in the rush to complete a task (and tick it off your to-do list) that may end up being unnecessary with a little more time and planning.

50

294 reads

Example of precrastination

You and your team are gearing up for a complex project, and they’ve sent a number of emails asking for clarification on certain points. Rather than taking the time to write back in a thoughtful and deliberate manner or schedule a call to discuss, you send back a series of half-baked replies.

Eg from my perspective:

When organizing the team on slack with small messages I find it to destroy my deepwork. Also the team is not very productive.

A solution is to have a clear call where we go through all the plan and make a rule to disturb the other one only in case of a bottleneck, otherwise have a call after 6-8h and see whats up.

47

262 reads

Rules to avoid precrastination

  1. Ask yourself, Would this task benefit from added time? Precrastination happens when we’re working on autopilot. Though it may seem counterintuitive on busy days, stop and consider all the tasks on your plate. Those that require creativity, thoughtfulness or emotion will benefit from a slower response.
  2. Know which tasks you can rush through. If a task takes just a few minutes to complete, it can be helpful to get it done quickly in favor of clearing your attentional space.
  3. Keep a calendar and to-do list. This might not seem revelatory, but externalizing what’s cluttering your mind is a wonderful thing. Tracking appointments, tasks, distractions and ideas using a notepad or smartphone app allows you to step back and organize. In addition to freeing up mental space, these tools can help you decide where to channel future energy.

57

187 reads

CURATED BY

sabin

Building @deepstash

Read & Learn

20x Faster

without
deepstash

with
deepstash

with

deepstash

Access to 200,000+ ideas

Access to the mobile app

Unlimited idea saving & library

Unlimited history

Unlimited listening to ideas

Downloading & offline access

Personalized recommendations

Supercharge your mind with one idea per day

Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.

Email

I agree to receive email updates