One of my friends, Greg (he is a Utah insurance agent), brought a rather interesting concept to my attention recently. It’s the idea of scheduled procrastination. It apparently revolves around the idea that you can overcome procrastination by scheduling it in. After all, the whole point of procrastination is that it is more pleasant than actually doing work.
Here’s how Greg explained the idea of scheduled procrastination to me:
The concept is that to help avoid procrastination in jobs like ours — work from home or at your own pace — you schedule time for ‘relaxing’ or the things that typically bog you down, while the stuff you MUST do is not scheduled. This lets you have an attitude where you sit down at the computer and say, “Well, I’d like to check my Facebook, but I have that scheduled for 45 minutes from now. What can I get done in 45 minutes while I’m waiting for Facebook?”
I admit that I find the whole idea somewhat intriguing. It’s about getting ready to do something you want to do, by cramming other items in ahead of your scheduled procrastination. Greg tells me the idea comes from a book called The Now Habit
Would Scheduled Procrastination Work for Me?
Greg and I are similar in that we both work at our own pace, largely setting our own schedules. This means that there is a great deal of self-motivation required. Additionally, we both have plenty of distractions threatening to reduce productivity. I can’t speak to how scheduled procrastination would work in Greg’s situation (he just brought the idea to my attention; he didn’t say he was using it), but I’m not sure how well it would actually work for me.
I am a rather goal and achievement oriented person. I derive pleasure from checking things off my to-do list. And, while I can get distracted, if I make a goal to avoid checking my email until certain things are done, or until a specific time, I am more productive, powering through my work before giving in to distractions. But I have to set a goal.
To me, scheduling in time for Facebook, or watching videos on YouTube, social media voting, reading, practicing the guitar, or doing any of the other things that I could be doing instead of work, seems really counter intuitive. I would rather just tackle the items on my to-do list, and then move on. I feel a sense of accomplishment when I get through the list, and I enjoy doing other things more. I schedule in time for exercise each day (as well as occasional activities like getting a pedicure or a massage on a monthly basis), and I make it a point to stop work (no matter where I’m at) to do things with my son, and to enjoy the evening with my husband, adding little procrastinations into my daily routine is not something I think I could countenance.
But that’s just me. I know that not everyone is like me, and that there are plenty of folks out there who might really benefit from the idea of scheduling in some procrastination.
What do you think? Could scheduled procrastination increase your productivity?
Lifestyle Enhancing Tips
Subscribe Now
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I think we’re so flooded with distractions that it’s difficult NOT to multi-task! I prefer to do work in small parts and take breaks as things interrupt me.