The art of procrastination

Some days you can spend hours at the computer, busily working away. Click, click, type, type. No end of activity. Sounds productive. And then eventually you realise that it is because you  decided you desperately needed to take a free online typing test to check your typing speed.  Because this of course is of greater or at least equal importance to working on that post you committed to write, or all those other tasks on the list.

There are many battles to be fought in the creative process. It is practice for everyday life.  There is a complete gauntlet to be run each time you try to indulge your creative urges. If the inner critic doesn't thwart you, procrastination might.

Its a sneaky beast, this Procrastination. Sometimes it is in disguise. It can cloak itself in the guise of research. Maybe planning. Getting organised. These things are all very valid, potential productivity enhancing activities. However, they are ancillary, support activities, not the main event. Important? Yes. Helpful? Yes. But if they are standing between you and the task at hand, efficient they are not.

If you feel busy then you may not realise that you are procrastinating. Procrastinating, sounds like you are not doing much. Therefore if you are actively engaged in furious activity you can't be procrastinating.

Procrastination is fear of beginning. Researching, planning and getting organised are all helpful activities that will ensure that your project gets off to a good start.  But they are the preliminaries. This preliminary phase needs to be curtailed. Preparation is always key to setting up your project for success.  Eventually you have to ask yourself if you are  just procrastinating. There is never 'enough' research. You have to just start, even if you don't feel ready.

The bible on getting things done is called Getting Things Done by David Allen. But if your procrastination time budget does not extend to reading a whole book here are 29 lifehacks for procrastination instead.