A Spork in the Road

Procrastination is good buddies with most of us, although I’m glad to say that Procrastination and I are not as tight as we used to be. Still, he pops up now and again, full of resistance and mindless diversions, and let me tell you something: he loves the Internet. As a writer and web developer, of course, I have my browser open all the time. Procrastination tells me that we can get to that project in a few minutes, but first why don’t we look up that actor whose name I’ve forgotten, or see if there are any cool concerts coming to town, or Napster that song I heard on the radio, or…

You can waste a lot of time that way.

Happily, I’ve found a very useful way to chase Procrastination off. As counterintuitive as it may seem, when I find myself frittering away valuable time simply because I don’t want to tackle a particular task, I walk away from my desk to a quiet room and just sit.

No book, TV, music, anything. Just silence and my own mind. I give myself a few minutes to relax and clear my head.

Then I think through why I’m resisting the task. Is it too hard? Am I afraid I can’t do it? Am I just overtired and need to take a quick power nap? Is it too dull to easily hold my attention? What are the consequences if I don’t work on the task immediately?

Sometimes I go take a nap. Sometimes I realize that I’ve been pushing myself to do something that isn’t urgent, and I let myself slow down the pace. Sometimes I discover that I don’t really know exactly where to start, and I set aside the task itself for an hour while I analyze the project and lay out a good plan. Sometimes I use the task at hand to motivate myself to pay bills and balance the checkbook — use one procrastination to overcome another!

And sometimes I realize that for whatever reason, my brain is not in gear, and I give myself permission to go read a book or watch a movie or take a walk — but always to do something specific, enjoyable, and rewarding. Frankly, if I’m just in one of those moods, I’d rather get some reading done, or go for a walk and think the problem through, than waste two hours doing nothing. If I’m going to avoid doing a task, I may as well do something useful in the meantime.

Of course, this approach is a luxury of being self-employed. Still, I think good managers at “normal” 9-to-5 companies would do well to be open to flexible ways of handling employees’ frustrations and difficulties. Not that I advocate letting employees wander around all day because they “don’t feel like working,” but it’s a simple fact that employees are not doing productive work from the moment they walk in the building to the moment they leave. Doesn’t it seem more rational and productive to accept the realities of humanity and find useful ways to get employees motivated than to require an unthinking submission to the clock?

I’d be interested to see a dedicated, motivated employee evaluate her performance at work over a period of time during which she observes traditional schedules — in at 9:00, with two 15-minute breaks and a half hour for lunch — and then compare that overall performance to a similar period of time in which she has greater flexibility with her time. I’m sure it’s been done, discussed, written about: anyone know of any resources out there that deal with this sort of approach to time management?