Interesting read. There's some great advice in there - especially his take on the importance of play - but much of it reads like the standard approach to procrastination that has consistently failed to work for me. For example:
> Sometimes you may have more items on your to-do list than you can reasonably complete. This can quickly lead to overwhelm, and ironically you may be more likely to procrastinate when you can least afford it. Think of it as your brain refusing to cooperate with a schedule that you know is unreasonable. In this case the message is that you need to stop, reassess your true priorities, and simplify.
My experience is exactly the opposite - the only time I'm really productive is when I have way too much to do. In fact, when the density of my agenda drops below a critical threshold of overwhelm, my productivity collapses to zero.
His section on laziness is a bit more ambiguous. I agree that exercise is a great way of jump-starting an inert brain (I commute by bicycle and generally take a brisk walk every day after lunch), but disagree that laziness as such is necessarily a problem.
Again, in my experience laziness has been a strong and persistent incentive for me to figure out how to accomplish more with less work - i.e. increase my productivity.
Similarly, his section on lack of motivation rings hollow for me. I chronically lack the motivation to do whatever is the most important thing I should be doing; but instead of fighting against it, I've learned to leverage my work avoidance by doing other productive work as a way of not doing what I'm supposed to be working on.
> In fact, when the density of my agenda drops below a critical threshold of overwhelm, my productivity collapses to zero.
I agree.
However, when I worked at a major DoD contractor for my first job, I was able to be productive even when there was 0 overwhelm. It was only after I worked at a pressure-cooker company that I became completely dependent on having lots of work and little time in order to be productive.
I'm similar (work best under pressure) but I often wonder if it's a case of avoiding failure (PG) by delaying work and also increasing the internal excuse you have if it all goes pear-shaped. Then again, I find that I don't get enough time to just relax normally, so anytime I do have a light agenda I "procrastinate" because I haven't met that minimum threshold. If you give me a few weeks holiday to catchup I'm all pumped to be working again. Given this, the only time I will work is when I've either had enough rest (very rare) or when the workload is so great that I can't afford not to.
Fantastic take on procrastination and how we may organize our schedule to manipulate ourselves into getting more done.
Cognitive biases are something I'm worried about, because by definition they're something I can't recognize (I blogged about it a short time ago). Procrastination is a form of trick our mind plays on us, funny how we can turn the table.
I wrote this comment while not working on my projects.
Basically I made a career out of the stuff I do while not working on my projects. I did SEO for a while but I preferred to do blogging and social media in the meantime and now I do far more of it officially.
