You Might Be a Secret “Productive Procrastinator”
I never thought of myself as a procrastinator. I never waited for the last minute to get work done. I was seemingly a productive person with a great work ethic. However, I noticed that I still was falling behind on some of my work tasks and it seemed impossible to get all of my work done within the normal work day. I knew I was working all day, yet I felt like I didn’t get anything completed. What was going on? This is what I refer to as “productive procrastination”.
There are obvious forms of productive procrastination such as organizing your office before you start a project. You somehow convince yourself that the mess will distract you from your work. This type of procrastination example is easier to spot because you clearly aren’t doing the work you were supposed to do. However, there are sneakier forms of productive procrastination that tend to derail many of my coaching clients. For example, perhaps you focused on your work all day without wasting time scrolling social media. However, you may still be falling victim to procrastination. We, humans, are such skilled creatures that we have developed creative ways of getting in our own way while still feeling productive.
One of the most frequent ways I would get derailed was by getting so overwhelmed by a project that it felt impossible to complete. As a result, I put off starting it and I spent my time on every other project or task. So I was doing work and being productive, but I wasn’t tackling a project my boss had deemed as a priority. Surprise, my boss didn’t appreciate it!
The challenge I was actually facing was that I didn’t know where to start and wasn’t sure how to get from start to finish. The project became a black hole that I couldn’t see into and was at risk of getting sucked into. I kept pointing out all the reasons why I couldn’t take on the project instead of figuring out what it would actually take to get the project done. The good news is that this issue can be resolved by setting aside a few minutes to break down the project into it’s mini-tasks.
When a project is large and looming, it can feel impossible to complete and to meet any proposed deadline. So instead, we need to start to think through the steps to get the project done. Often, after completing this exercise, I realize that the project is much easier than I had anticipated. This allows me to release a lot of the anxiety I had built up.
Another benefit of this approach is that it will help you identify project milestones which enables you to better track and recognize the progress you are making on a project. This helps combat those feelings that you’ve been working for hours or days or weeks on a project and have nothing to show for it. When you’ve already broken down the project into mini-tasks, you can see how many steps you have completed. You can then clearly articulate what is remaining to any key stakeholders.
Another way we unintentionally derail ourselves is our inability to identify the most essential elements needed for completion. Instead, we “overengineer” and overcomplicate the project and the solution. For instance, I have worked with a few clients who, during their job search process, identified the need to create a digital portfolio or website to showcase examples of their work. This can be an easy exercise or it can become a time-consuming task that takes months and then delays the person’s ability to start applying for new jobs.
The first problem is that we have now put off applying for jobs until we complete a new task, which may or may not be a legit blocker. The other problem is that we haven’t taken a moment to define what “done” looks like before we begin. What does this online portfolio entail exactly? Once you identify what done looks like, then can you validate it against your goal to ensure that you aren’t adding unnecessary and time consuming elements. In the case of the website portfolio, I took 5 minutes to talk with my client about which elements to include. There were some that needed to be completed before the client felt comfortable applying for new jobs and other elements that could be added later. As a result, my client decided to apply for a few jobs before the portfolio was complete, streamlined what was included in the portfolio, and completed version 1 in two weeks.
One of the last examples of productive procrastination, and I am a huge offender here, is spending too much time on a task. It’s spending 1-hour researching fonts as you are trying to revamp your resume. Or working on a 20+ page deck and wasting time looking for just the right image on slide 2. You are working on a task related to the project (yay!), but you are spending too much time on a particular aspect of it that is not going to deliver the right return on your time investment (boo!).
One of the best ways to combat this sneaky affliction is to develop skills like time blocking. Time blocking enables you to think through how much time you want to spend on a task. This makes it easier to catch yourself when you are engaging in this form of productive procrastination. From there, you can get yourself back on-track, saving yourself precious minutes or hours of wasted time.
As we can see, you don’t need to be reading BuzzFeed articles to be considered a procrastinator. Particularly for overachievers, productive procrastination is more likely the culprit preventing you from getting more done in less time, creating stress and anxiety, and holding you back professionally. Which one of the examples above has snuck into your routine? Identify it and then address it to see extraordinary benefits to your productivity.
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For a quick and effective overview of how to use the time blocking productivity technique that was mentioned in the article, you can watch this video and learn how to master the technique in ~5 minutes.
