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How to be more efficient: stop 'precrastinating'
Reasons for Precrastination
The work in front of us seems urgent, even though it may not be important, and we are instinctively wired to complete it. If something is immediately available to us, we instinctively go for it.
Short-term tasks that seemingly would take five minutes to complete are done first. We also have an eagerness to please and conscientiousness (our desire to do our duties thoroughly) that make us precrastinators.
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Precrastination
In our quest to beat procrastination, is it possible to go too far. Precrastination is a tendency to rush too quickly into the pending tasks, and can be a wasteful mental effort towards what might have been a stress-free task, if a bit of planning was applied.
Example: A person who is precrastinating would hurriedly read and respond to all emails lying in the inbox, depleting precious energy on pseudo-work, energy that could have been used at something more important.
Reasons for Precrastination
The work in front of us seems urgent, even though it may not be important, and we are instinctively wired to complete it. If something is immediately available to us, we instinctively go for it.
Short-term tasks that seemingly would take five minutes to complete are done first. We also have an eagerness to please and conscientiousness (our desire to do our duties thoroughly) that make us precrastinators.
Don't Do Everything
Chronic Precrastinators must understand that it is ok to ‘not’ do trivial things right away and to use that mental energy and willpower to work on something substantial and important.
In today’s world, it should be okay to slow down, to be deliberate and mindful.
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Our brains are programmed to procrastinate
To make the benefits of action feel bigger and more real:
- Visualize how great it will be to get it done.
- Pre-commit, publicly.
- Confront the downside of inaction.
Considering the downside of putting a task off will help move forward with it
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The advantages of procrastination
There are two kinds of individuals in this world: those who procrastinate and those who do the things in advance.
In what the first category is concerned, there is some evidence that p...
The drawbacks of procrastination
While procrastination might have some advantages, it certainly has proven drawbacks. Individuals who procrastinate tend to be more stressed and, therefore, suffer from stress-related illnesses. Furthermore, students who procrastinate have lower GPAs than the ones who don't. So you would better think twice before postponing an action next time.
The reasons behind procrastination
Whenever somebody decides to procrastinate, this happens whether because the task seems too unpleasant or because the planning wasn't done properly and, therefore, the need to delay.
Intentional or not, procrastination ends up having the same effects on your everyday life. And these are not always good.
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Ruthless prioritization
It means deciding not to do things you'd really like to do. It also means deciding what's the most important task even when everything on your list feels crucial.
But if you can prioritize...
Consolidate All of Your Tasks Into a Single Source
To-dos arrive from a variety of sources. Your boss sends you an email, you get a Slack message from IT, a bill arrives in the mail, or a coworker asks for a favor in the hallway.
In order to prioritize your task list efficiently, you need a master to-do list that contains all of the tasks you need to prioritize and complete from all of those sources.
Analyze Your Task List
Go through your list, review each task, and decide what you want to do with it. You have 4 options:
- Do: complete the task now
- Defer: complete it later
- Delegate: assign it to someone else
- Delete: remove it from your list
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Boss-mode vs worker-mode
Knowledge workers usually have to play 2 roles at the same time - the boss and the worker: They have to choose what their work is (boss-mode) and they have to do the actu...
Limited attention
Your attention is a limited resource and you have to be careful where you are spending it.
If you choose to give away 80 percent of your attention to meetings, you will have 20 percent of your attention just for dealing with a few emails feeling overwhelmed.
Levels of attention
- Proactive attention: you are fully focused and prepared for your most important decisions/ most complex tasks.
- Active attention: you're plugged in, but also easily distracted.
- Inactive attention: you're likely to really struggle with complex or difficult tasks.
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Why we procrastinate
Procrastination is more about our emotions than our tendencies for laziness or just being “bad at deadlines”. At its core, we procrastinate to keep ourselves happy in the moment.
...How to overcome your procrastination habit
We have two ways of dealing with our procrastination:
- Make whatever we’re procrastinating on feel less uncomfortable, and
- Convince our present selves into caring about our future selves.
Make getting started ridiculously easy
Often starting a task is the biggest hurdle. Research shows that progress—no matter how small—can be a huge motivator to help us keep going.
Set the timer for just 5 or 10 minutes. While the timer’s running, you don’t have to work, but you can’t do anything else. You have to sit with your work, even if you don’t get started.
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Scheduling Calls
Never schedule a call or meeting using email.
Right now, the usual hallway conversations or impromptu office visits are impossible, so try to use meeting scheduling servic...
Organizing your Obligations
Immediately move obligations out of your inbox and into role-specific archives.
Moving and prioritizing things into specific compartments or zones helps us organize our thought process and workflow. It also helps us focus and does not let different kinds of activity(of our many different roles) overwhelm us.
Working Only In Office Hours
Having fixed working hours (while at home in your pajamas) makes you concentrate better, and be more productive. You need to switch off from work once the office hours are over.
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Oliver Emberton
Important vs. urgent tasks
- Important tasks are things that contribute to your long-term mission, values, and goals.
- Urgent tasks are tasks that have to be dealt with immediately: phone calls, urgent deadlines, and situations where you have to respond quickly.
Sometimes important tasks stare you right in the face, but you neglect them and respond to urgent but unimportant things.
Don't be available all the time
Time, not money, is your most valuable asset. Invest your asset:
- Allocate time to each task you need to get done every day.
- Each task of the day should be attainable, realistic, and time-bound. And it should advance your goals for the day, week or month.
- Don't get distracted by everything others expect you to do.
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Procrastination is not an identity
Procrastination is something you do, not someone you are. When you stop making procrastination part of your identity, you free yourself up to change.
Don't judge yourself for how you f...
Clarify
Figure out why you avoid taking action. Find out all the reasons that prevent you from moving forward.
For example:
- You find the task challenging.
- You don’t know how to do the project.
- The activity is boring.
You don’t have a clear block of time to work on the task.
You need a quiet workspace.
You expect your work to be perfect—and fear it won’t be.
You don’t have a deadline.
Address the issues
Once you understand the reasons for procrastination, address those specific issues.
Keep on dealing with the issues one by one. This will build momentum and move you toward completing your projects.
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To-Do Lists
Your to-do list can be a tool that guides you through your work, or it can be a big fat pillar of undone time bombs taunting you and your unproductive inadequacy.
If the instructions are c...
The two modes
- When a project or task comes up, the steps you need to take start to form in your mind. Now you're in thinking/Boss mode.
- Your to-do list is a collection of those orders, which your Assistant personality will later pick up and do.
Put Items That You're Definitely Doing
Instead of letting tasks you're not quite committed to loiter on your to-do list until you're sick of looking at them, move them off to a separate list, a holding area for Someday/Maybe items.
Only concrete actions you're committed to completing should live on your to-do list.
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