What? Isn’t procrastination supposed to be evil?
Here’s the thing. We are fighting procrastination, but then we also hate multitasking. Aren’t we switching context like crazy when procrastinating? What if we are just trying to pull our brain apart with all this fighting?
So a few months ago I decided to try something new: let procrastination take over. Like, completely give up, not even trying. Browse social media all day. Whatever. Nothing will get done, so be it. No work stuff, no home stuff. I’m ok with that.
Couple days went down the toilet. But then, something changed. It was no longer fun to scroll feeds. I’ve read enough books. And, strange new thoughts started popping in out of nowhere. They called for action, but not in a familiar way of “ahh I should have done that long ago”, more like “what if I just do this?”.
No more goals, so whatever, I’ll just throw this old stuff out. And maybe go buy some kitchen towels. And that app we’re struggling to finish, maybe we should just drop it. Wait a minute, that was about work! But it certainly wasn’t hard to think about it; in fact, I felt relieved.
So how is procrastination related to context switching?
In my oversimplified model, procrastination is a way our brain tells us that it is tired of being focused on the same thing. It asks for change, it wants to handle it in the background. But we force it back to the stuff we think it should be doing now. If we succeed, it’s like working out with sore muscles, only gets more painful as we keep pushing. And if we give in and “distract”, we instantly start feeling bad about it, because we’re now procrastinating.
Context switching is the opposite. The brain asks for focus, our consciousness isn’t done with the thing yet but we force it to switch. But the brain can’t put it in the background, the piece is just not ready to go there. So we either forget the whole thing or end up trying to keep everything in working memory, which quickly gets overwhelmed.
Is there a way to avoid both?
So I tried another experiment. I wrote down a list of things I care about today, big and small. From now on, I’m only thinking of these. If a new thought pops up, I either add it to the list, or decide that I don’t care for now. I don’t have to do anything about the items, just think.
The list started growing quickly, but at about 20 items it slowed down. I was just sitting there, staring into the list, and jumping from one thing to another in my head. There was enough stuff to juggle with, and I didn’t feel obliged to complete anything.
Soon, just like with the previous experiment, I felt a call for action. But this time, it was actually about stuff I care about, because it was from the list. So I hit “install” for that update. While it’s downloading, I started writing that email. Oops, I don’t really know what to write, so it’s just the subject line. Anyway, goes to drafts, and in the meantime the update is ready to install… And so it went.
In just about an hour I’ve done so much I couldn’t believe it. There was some boring stuff that I kept pushing aside for ages, but also a couple of really important things. Best of all, I wasn’t tired at all, quite the opposite — I was upbeat and ready to do twice as much.
Leverage procrastination
There is a fragile balance between procrastination and context switching. But if you listen carefully to your brain and feed it with the right things to think about, it’s going to figure it out effortlessly. As opposed to the vicious cycle of procrastination, this is a virtuous cycle — getting even the tiniest thing done elevates the mood and calls for more action. Distractions are suddenly no big deal, just another item in the list.
The hard thing of course is to make room for setting it up, and by room I mean time. Pushing back to all of the urgent stuff takes a lot of effort. So try it on a weekend. Or better, don’t plan anything for the first couple days of your next vacation, nothing at all. Heck, hop on a train and after getting there head straight back. There is a reason why some of the best ideas come in transit.