
How to Procrastinate Productively - nwignall
https://nickwignall.com/productive-procrastination/
======
shubhamjain
At some point, you have to stop fiddling and finish what you started. Even if
you procrastinate productively, spending ten minutes on a musical instrument,
then another ten on reading an article, and then delving somewhere else is
marginally better than binging on Youtube and Netflix. The constant context
switching prevents you from going deep. All you gain is superficial knowledge.

This, in my opinion, the bad "good procrastination." Something I am trying to
escape from. Doing so many things without focus ended up imbibing a habit of
rarely finishing anything. I agree with the author that it's useful to let
your attention wander away from day-to-day stuff, but it's equally important
to realize that there's a limit to how many things you can productively do in
parallel.

~~~
Bjartr
One of the most damaging pieces of advice I ever received was "starting lots
of things and not finishing them is bad".

Rather than finish more things, I became wary of starting things. This did not
improve my overall output, and in fact lost me the experience I would have
gained from many started-but-unfinished projects. It's taken me years to
unlearn this advice in practice.

I especially take issue with calling out practice of a musical instrument. Ten
minutes every day or two is much better than one hour every week or two.

~~~
InitialLastName
I prefer the mantra "One who puts on his armor should not boast like one who
takes it off."[0] I take it as advice not to talk about anything that isn't
finished, which spurs me to finish more things so I can talk about them.

[0] Disclaimer: From a really old book, might be superseded by newer material
(1 Kings 20:11)

~~~
Bjartr
To reinforce your point, the act of talking about a work-in-progress can
actually give your brain a reward similar to actually finishing a that task,
sapping your drive to finish things and increasing your drive to start more
things, just so you can talk about them.

~~~
InitialLastName
This.

Before I picked that up, I started a lot of things and talked a lot about
them. Now for any endeavour I find myself making early decisions to push
through and finish or move on ASAP. Among other things, it's meant far less
time spent on books I don't actually want to be reading.

------
TheGrumpyBrit
I have a list called "Low-energy tasks" which I use whenever I'm feeling
burned out and can't focus on actual work. Simple things like "Organise my
mailbox" or "Review documentation" that aren't taxing, but still count as
work. I'll probably still procrastinate a lot on those days, but at least I
can say I got _something_ done.

~~~
maroonblazer
Yeah, I do the same and find that it works really well at managing my
procrastination habit. It's also consistent with the idea of managing your
energy and not your time, made popular in this HBR article.

[https://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-
time](https://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-time)

I've really taken this to heart and found that there are entire categories of
"high-involvement" tasks that I'm simply not up to outside of my peak energy
periods (mornings) but that still need to get done. Even breaking those high-
involvement tasks down to micro tasks I find that my low-energy intervals can
deal with some of those quite well.

------
kapep
_[...] what procrastination looks like for most people:

\- Think about working.

\- Immediately feel the urge to procrastinate.

\- Start beating themselves up with a bunch of negative self-talk for wanting
to procrastinate (I’m such a procrastinator, why can’t you just stay focused?)

\- Feel badly, including a bunch of negative emotions like shame and
disappointment, on top of the already-strong urge to procrastinate.

\- Procrastinate on something emotionally numbing._

Is that really how it works for most people? I (and I always assumed that's
how it is for most people) often just rationalize procrastination ("My tasks
are not that important/interesting, I'll do them later", "Reading just one
more article is fine, then back to work") without any negative thoughts at
that time. Sometimes I do some research and suddenly realize I ended up on
StackOverflow or HN and think "wait a minute, that's not work any more". But
that's ok if I get all work done.

I think that is the usual way of procrastination. What the article claims how
most people procrastinate (negative thoughts, getting no work done) sounds
like more extreme but rarer cases.

~~~
coldtea
> _without any negative thoughts at that time._

You'd be surprised...

------
otterpro
I hadn't thought of coming to work/office early (6AM in this case), to work on
personal project/hobbies. My thoughts on the benefits of this strategy:

* One can actually look forward to going to work in the morning, knowing that something fun/interesting/passionate is waiting at the office.

* Which leads to ... It motivates one to wake up early, which I had been struggling with.

* One can avoid morning traffic/rush hour and also get the best parking space at office.

* One can feel a little bit of peace knowing that he/she has done something to move the needle on the passion/side project every day.

* One can give the best part of his/her day to the side-project. I'm usually too tired to work on side project in the late afternoon/evening, so I often end up doing nothing but vegging on Youtube/TV/etc after dinner.

EDIT: It's a win-win, as long as it's okay with the employer. It might be
awkward and weird especially if the passion project is something that's not
related to the occupation -- like shooting Youtube videos in my cubicle.
Another downside is that half of day is spent in the office, which is a little
too long.

~~~
mikestew
_It might be awkward and weird especially if the passion project is something
that 's not related to the occupation_

It might also later be argued that your successful side-project belongs to the
company since you used company resources to build it. I would get any
agreement in writing so there are no misunderstandings later.

------
TeMPOraL
> _Re-frame procrastination as a natural desire for variety and curiosity in
> your life. If you give this natural curiosity regular outlets throughout
> your days and weeks, it won’t need to blow up into major procrastination._

That's a good point I haven't seen expressed in that way before, though I
realize now I've been using this as one of anti-procrastination tricks. If I'm
procrastinating because I really want to some _particular_ other thing, doing
that thing usually makes me quickly want to go back to the original task.

But I do also have a lot of open-ended curiosity that's a problem. During
university times, I often joked I owe half of my knowledge of the world to
binge-reading Wikipedia at nights in high-school. These days, I try to rein it
in a bit, otherwise I could spend the whole day following different trails of
knowledge, without ever feeling a desire to come back to the task at hand.

> _By cultivating hobbies and interests that are at least indirectly
> supportive of your primary work, anytime you choose to procrastinate you’ll
> be engaging in productive procrastination._

Yeah, right :). I use that excuse a lot. But the truth is, I've been stuck at
the last 40 pages of Polya's book for the past 2 weeks, not because I didn't
have any opportunity to procrastinate, but because it's somehow much easier to
open a HN article or comment on one (as I'm doing right now), than it is to
read a few pages of a book, or do a tiniest contribution to any of 20 open
side-projects I have...

------
jarnagin
The moment I start worrying about procrastinating productively, I’ll start
procrastinating procrastinating, and then there will be two levels to traverse
back to productivity, rather than one.

~~~
crooked-v
With this kind of metacommentary in mind, you may be intrigued/horrified by
some of the Black Mirror-esque ideas that come up in transhumanist scifi now
and again of future people creating automation for themselves for given
activities, and that automation when sufficiently advanced emulating the
person well enough to create automation for itself for given activities, and
that automation when sufficiently advanced... you get the idea, until it's
Russian nesting dolls all the way down and it's impossible to find the
original person again.

~~~
mvanvoorden
Sounds like the Rick & Morty episode 'The Ricks must be crazy'

~~~
scallycat
Also reminds me of the Calvin and Hobbes "duplicator" storyline!
([https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/01/11](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/01/11))

------
Sir_Cmpwn
The trick is to never stop procrastinating. I'll get to that code after I read
a few articles... 1.5 articles in and I'm getting bored again, I'll finish
these after I write a little code... repeat.

~~~
pablasso
I tend to do that but is super draining. I could spend hours and then look
back at it and get depressed because I didn't do as much as I expected.

And at the end I'm still as tired as if I worked 100% focused on something, I
try to avoid this as much as possible.

------
pdpi
Strategy #4: Realise that procrastination might not just be a bad habit you
can lifehack your way around. It may well be a symptom of an anxiety disorder,
and you need to get that thing checked.

~~~
kanishkdudeja
Yes. Generally, excessive procrastination has been linked with ADHD.

~~~
pdpi
ADHD is clearly a problem here, yes, but it's a different kettle of fish.

I'm talking more about anxiety disorders like generalised anxiety disorder,
and potentially depression. If you suffer from work-related anxiety,
procrastination is a classical avoidant-style coping mechanism.

------
vanzorn
Hacker News No Procrastination Settings: maxvisit 30, minaway 30. Eventually
I'll wean myself down to 15/45.

But in all seriousness, Pomodoros are great when I'm unsure / keyed up about a
new project and prone to wander off "researching."

IME, eventually the Pomodoros inevitably give way to extended sessions with
flow.

~~~
wool_gather
> eventually the Pomodoros inevitably give way to extended sessions with flow.

I have also found this to be a _great_ way to trick my mind into working.
Promise myself "just one" pomodoro, then I can go do something else. If I get
that first session started, by the end of it I don't want to stop even for the
five-minute break, and then next thing I know four pomodoros have gone by and,
lo and behold, the opposite of the usual procrastination timesuck: I actually
spent two hours working on the thing without thinking about it! The mind is
such a weirdo like that.

~~~
meko
That's a good perspective. I drifted away from pomodoro's precisely because I
found the intervals too be a bit too rigid and the breaks occurred when I'd be
in the middle of something. Instead using one or more as a bootstrap for
productivity is something I hadn't considered, but it seems obvious now.

~~~
wool_gather
I'll admit they kind of fade in and out of usefulness for me. But I always
feel free to bleed into a break, too, if I'm right smack in the middle of
something. I have found it important to actually take the break at some point,
though. Timer rings, take a minute or two to finish the thought, then reset
the timer for your break.

------
gdubs
Dr David Burns, who popularized Cognitive Behavorial Therapy, says that the
common misconception people have when it comes to procrastination is that
motivation precedes action. In fact, he says, to beat procrastination it’s
helpful to realize that motivation _follows_ action. Listing out and
accomplishing a few ridiculously easy steps (“open editor”, “review last
commit”, etc) can be enough to generate the motivation to keep going.

In other words, instead of setting out to work for an hour, convince yourself
to work for only 5 mins; more often than not, when the 5 mins are up you’ll
probably keep working for a good while longer, motivation increasing as you
work.

------
hevi_jos
Procrastination is fear and most of it makes absolute sense, your body is
telling you something is not right.

When I started working long hours in front of a computer,alone, I had to stop
doing it. It was impossible to continue after some time doing that.

I though it was procrastination. Then I learn about the lymphatic system and
how the body needs to move every single day or else you will feel miserable.

So I started doing exercise every day and suddenly I could work for long
hours. There was something wrong and the body acted like a baby that does not
know what is wrong but knows something is wrong and cries.

Any procrastination technique that does not consider the root of the problem
will fail.

I also put my computer in front of my eyes while standing up, added physical
objects to my work, devices that react to touch(3d mouses) or movement.... and
my live improved enormously. The reason they work is even longer and more
complex that the lymphatic system.

Another very useful thing was recording in a piece of paper the time(hours of
real work) and intensity of my work(in a color scale). I realized I called
"procastination" when I tried to do too much work (8 hours a day) of work that
at the end of the day was super intensive.

It was kind of ridiculous. It is like considering that because you could walk
for 8 hours that you could run a marathon with the same velocity and intensity
as a sprints. And then do it every single day after that.

Being young, I could do one day(or two) this way, but after that I did burn
out.

Computers are very antinatural objects for human beings. If you try to adapt
yourself to the computer instead of the other way around,(making the computer
speak for example) you are going to suffer enormously.

------
thunder_clap
I am lucky that I find enjoyment procrastinating with interests that synergise
with my work. However I often get into a feeling of being unable to relax and
worrying that if I stray I am wasting time. Even if I am enjoying it.

------
matwood
Or make your procrastination time really worthwhile. I force myself to do
chores or other work when I'm procrastinating about a particular task. This
also means I'll have more time later.

It's also important long term to train yourself to not procrastinate. The
trick I use is to immediately work on something when I recognize
procrastination. For me, it was always getting started that was hard. When I
fail at this, I do the chores above.

Another trick is getting up early. Did I get up at 5am to read HN, or did I
get up at 5am to workout and get some solid work time on my side project?

------
Kagerjay
This sounds kind of like me. I don't use things like pomodoros, I find it
distracts me too much. I embrace my procrastination habits. It is like ADHD, I
just go wandering mindlessly through youtube, some specific subreddits,
hackernews, etc. Its not a waste of time for me because I'm learning about new
technologies, software, tools, content, etc that helps me in my job and
personal life. I never view anything I do for fun as a waste of time.

I have 3 cycles in personal productivity.

1) When I intentionally let my mind wander freely -> When I deep dive into a
huge number of breath first content in multiple industries. I watch many
documentaries,youtube videos, read news,etc and I have systems for collecting
which information I've read or seen

2) Focused on one task -> Depth first approach, deep diving and learning one
specific topic very well. Or working on a side project and nothing else. I try
and make this timeblock last a few hours long, because there's a startup/warm
up time in getting "in the zone".

3) When my mind needs a break -> play something like rocket league, ASMR,
walking around for a bit, stretching, getting food, etc

At the start of my day, I usually do steps (1) (2) and (3) in order. As the
day progresses I tend to focus on (2)

------
gmac
See also
[http://structuredprocrastination.com/](http://structuredprocrastination.com/)
and related discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10151481](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10151481)

------
dmitripopov
Procrastination arises from different sources in different people. For
example, advises in this article won't work if you procrastinate because you
are completely burned out. Or you are overwhelmed by anxiety. Or some health
problems prevent you from staying focused. The devil is in the detail.

------
barking
If that article hadn't been upvoted here I would have just glanced at and
instantly dismissed it as rubbish, the style, the stock picture, the seemingly
fake piece of dialogue at the start _stop being so productive!_. The whole
looked thing like it was put together to a recipe.

------
arayh
I feel that mindful procrastination is very helpful to keep my focus rather
than trying to avoid procrastination and getting lulled into a state of
staring at the ceiling (or, of course, the negative self-criticism). Everyone
seems to have a different mode of procrastination, so there probably isn't a
one-solution-fits-all. Also, I think one of the aspects of procrastination
that we don't seem to talk about much is how other people view your
procrastination and judge you based on their perception (whether accurate or
otherwise) of your efficiency or lack thereof. External judgement of your mode
of procrastination greatly affects your emotional well-being and thus also
your focus and efficiency.

------
tootahe45
Do stuff that for the most part, you don't find boring enough to
procrastinate.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's not the boredom that's always a reason for procrastination.

For me, it sometimes is. If I can sketch a convincing implementation in my
head and it's not something I have strong personal desire to see in the real
world, the implementation suddenly becomes one big chore. I have enough
experience in programming to be confident I can code up anything I plan with
enough details in my head, and find little reward in just proving myself
right.

But the other thing is, I procrastinate on things I _have_ to do, just because
I _have to do_ them. I.e. take anything, attach any form of obligation to it,
and you've just turned up my procrastination up to 11. I don't know why that
happens, but I've been like this for as long as I can remember, and my entire
career in this industry is mostly about figuring out tricks around this
problem.

------
sbilstein
Playing piano for short breaks is pretty nice but I've found that picking
hobbies can really get me sucked out of the work I _need_ to do. What I do
these days is either set a timer when I want a longer break from work
(15m-30m) or hit the eject button on any task really quickly. If I start
reading an article, I try to decide within 90 seconds if I should just start
working again.

------
siruncledrew
I’m not a morning person so I have a hard time envisioning myself getting to
work before 7am to procrastinate for a total of 1.5hrs. Does this guy leave
work earlier in the day? I would probably become less productive at work if I
was there 7am-5pm and leisurely took my time. I like to have time at home to
relax and think (procrastinate) too.

------
oyebenny
So basically, it's okay to procrastinate as long as what you're
procrastinating with is a good habit.

~~~
bittercynic
I'd flip that around a little: Procrastination is inevitable, so accept that
you'll do it, and avoid the worst forms of it.

------
adriansky
Pomodoro technique helps here: 25 min. focused work/flow. Then, 5 min. break.
After 4 Pomodoros, take a longer break I noticed I also stress less and
standing up during break energize me

~~~
pknerd
Being a programmer I rather find it penalizing me. The time I take to
think+code, 25 mins are gone and I feel emptiness and incompleteness inside.

------
alan_wade
I loved the article, but what I really want to apploaud is how well your
typography, design, and varying fonts, quotes, setence lengths, etc. make it
engaging and readable. So well done!

------
j7ake
Sorry but reading articles online is not procrastinating productively.

I would accept procrastinating productively as tasks that are important but
not urgent.

~~~
coldtea
Developing your knowledge (which you can do by reading articles online) is
important but not urgent.

~~~
VBprogrammer
If I ever have to survive a post apocalypse type event I'm sure my
(theoretical) knowledge of blacksmithing, gasification, woodworking,
permaculture and micro-hydro will come in useful.

Until that time I've no idea why these things (and many more I didn't mention)
tickle that part of my brain which makes me want to learn everything there is
to know about a subject.

------
samirm
Not trying to be a negative nancy, but isn't this all kind of obvious?

------
lower
For me it helps to purposely "do something that scares you."

------
qwerty456127
How to procrastinate recursively?

