We all know that we shouldn’t procrastinate, but we do it anyway. As I see it, procrastination is unavoidable for most people on most days.
However, the silver lining is that procrastination doesn’t always have to yield negative results. Let’s walk through the concepts of productive procrastination and look at examples of how to exactly do it.
Before we get started, let’s get one fact straight: Procrastination is unavoidable! You can minimize the amount of time you spend procrastinating, but not eliminate it entirely from your life. The best alternative is to embrace, exercise and excel at Productive Procrastination.
The book “The Procrastination Equation” suggests that procrastination is a fight between our prefrontal cortex and our limbic system. The limbic system is activated by immediate pleasures, while the prefrontal cortex is activated by thinking about future/long-term rewards.
Our ancestors were hunter-gatherers, thus most of the decisions were driven by immediate pleasures and dangers. Today, however, your success highly relies on your ability to delay gratification and focus on long-term rewards and pleasures. This requires you to rely mostly on your prefrontal cortex to exercise impulse control.
Interestingly, from the evolution perspective and from a lifetime perspective (going from the womb to being a fully grown adult), the prefrontal cortex is the last to fully develop. Hence, we are wired to procrastinate! Now, that we know that there is no way around procrastination, let’s learn to use it to our advantage.
What is Productive Procrastination?
Basically, productive procrastination is avoiding the important task at hand by completing a less urgent yet beneficial task. If you are going to procrastinate anyway, might as well do it in a way that is beneficial to you.
Productive procrastination is avoiding a high-priority task with an important, but lower priority task instead of an unnecessary task. Now, let’s explore the different ways to accomplish productive procrastination:
1. Make a To-Do List
To-do lists are a key to procrastinating productively. They not only keep you organized but reduce anxiety, boost confidence, and provide a structure to your day.
To-do lists will ensure you make the right choice when procrastinating. It is like keeping fruits and nuts on your desk at work rather than chips and cookies; you will be more likely to reach out for whatever is immediately available to you, i.e. the items on your to-do list.
I suggest making two separate to-do lists: 1) tasks that can be completed quickly and 2) tasks that are more elaborate. Alternatively, you can also categorize your tasks as either low mental energy tasks or high mental energy tasks.
Whenever you find yourself losing focus on the task at hand, knock down an item from the to-do list. Knocking down items on a to-do list will not only allow you to productively procrastinate but also keep you motivated throughout the day. Additionally, simply putting down a task on a piece of paper frees up space in your mind that can instead be used on the task at hand.
2. Get Physical
One of the reasons for procrastination can be your brain getting tired of focusing on a single task. If so, what can be better than getting active!
Instead of picking up your phone, do a quick 10 minutes no-equipment workout. You will be surprised how energetic you can feel from a quick exercise! If you are not a fitness fanatic, refresh your mind and body by taking a quick 10-15 minutes stroll or stretching your legs and arms.
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3. Use your phone wisely
A mobile device can facilitate productive procrastination (checking emails, reading news articles, sending business communications). However, it can also just as easily and quickly lead to procrastinating on unimportant items (social media, shopping, streaming).
There are many ways to use your phone productively. The main way is to make a rule to yourself to pause to think about the reason for opening your phone as one of the main reasons for procrastination is opening your phone aimlessly. The best way to avoid using multiple apps once you have your phone open is to not keep any time-wasting apps on your home screen.
Another thing you might consider is putting a time limit on time-wasting apps. This way, you will NEVER waste more time than necessary on social media.
4. Listen to a Podcast
When you feel like getting away from the task at hand, listen to a podcast or an audiobook while you knock out another physical task like doing the dishes, laundry, or taking a walk.
You refresh your mind by diverting your mind to a different topic while completing a task. When you return to your original task at hand, you will not only feel motivated by the feeling of accomplishing a task off your to-do list but also refreshed to re-focus on the original task.
5. Find a pal to keep you on track
The very best way to ensure you stay on track to achieve a goal is to have someone that can hold you accountable. You need to find someone that will point out each time you are steering away from your to-do list or your designated tasks to procrastinate. Ideally, this would be a person that lives with you or works with you.
Bonus!!
As important as it is to have a structure to be productive throughout your day, it is just as important to designate certain time slots during the day for unstructured free time.
Ideally, you want the unstructured time slots to be during later parts of the day. You want the tasks that are less interesting and don’t provide immediate rewards to be completed during the beginning of the day; This has to do with dopamine release and the role it plays in keeping us motivated.