
Why an upcoming appointment makes us less productive - pizza
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-05/osu-wau052318.php
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creep
I don't think it's at all illogical or a trick of the mind that we feel we
have less time to do something meaningful when we have another appointment or
task coming up.

In the hour before my appointment starts I could be looking over some notes
from another project, but at the half-hour mark I'm already quite focused on
reading-- after which point I will be lost in that work. Consequently, I don't
look at my notes because it's likely I'll find that I've gone over the hour
mark and I'm late, or that I will have to stop in the middle of an insight and
I'll be left feeling a bit muddled and disorganized.

Instead, I could probably sit and think about the contents of the appointment
itself, which is something I usually do. Or I could check my phone-- which is
something I do if there's not much that I could think about before the
appointment.

There is also often anxiety involved before scheduled tasks, and it can be
helpful to distract from that and not do anything "productive" (in the usual
sense of the word) in that time, or to try and relax. It may be more helpful
to do something to prepare, but sometimes it's not.

