While this would be an excellent candidate for a “Page 2” section – stuff that doesn’t belong on the main page because it’s mostly rambling – it actually does have a solid base. Solid enough to win an Ig-Nobel Prize: Procrastination the productive way.
Its author, John Perry calls it “structured procrastination” and the concept is as simple as it is beautiful: If you have the tendency to avoid stuff you ought to be doing, why not use your “getting away” instinct to get somewhere productive? So the idea is to do the opposite of what the (95% nonsense, but that’s another story) self-help literature tells you. Fill up your todo list and go on avoiding those pressing top-priority items – by doing the other stuff.
I’ve been doing this for the past few days, and I can tell you that on one really important project that I should’ve been working on for a month already, I made more progress in three days than I had made in the three weeks prior.
And reflecting back, that is often the case. Whenever I have really important, pressing business to attend to, my hobby projects make huge progress. Fortunately, it also works the other way around.
So if you are a procrastinator, too – go and read that article and try it for yourself.
