Procrastination

Rabbit holes, writer's block, and the problem with productivity hacks

Recently I've been struggling with procrastination in a way I haven't really felt since the days of cramming for finals in college. During the workday I kept finding myself on social media, so I deleted TikTok, then Instagram, then Snapchat, until finally there was only Facebook, which I convinced myself I needed because I'm using Marketplace to buy things for a new place I just moved into. I regret to say that although I've haggled my way to 50% off area rugs and patio tables, I'm paying for it in the countless hours I've now somehow lost scrolling my GODFORSAKEN FACEBOOK FEED. I had a come-to-Jesus moment when I realized I spent the last 45 minutes looking at photos of newborns and house remodeling projects from people I haven't spoken to since high school. It wasn't that I was just wandering off task or prioritizing the wrong thing, there was something more complex going on here.

Suggested for me: TSwift clickbait I have no business clicking on…but slightly beats making a slide deck

To help make sense of this, let's turn to Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. He does a heroic job of breaking down the procrastination puzzle in a way that feels way more based than the other life-hacky productivity gurus out there. I highly recommend sampling some of his wisdom in this podcast, but here is my attempt to summarize some of what stuck with me from his work:

• Procrastination is a way of convincing ourselves we’re staying in control

  • If we never start packing for a trip, we’ll never forget to pack something essential

• Procrastination is not just a consequence of lack of discipline, it's a technique we use to self-regulate when we’re feeling 😫 

  • Social media gets a lot of (deserved) shit, but the uncomfortable truth is that we want to be distracted because it gives us a more pleasant and in-control feeling than a dreaded task

• Willpower and time management techniques have a place, but they aren’t silver bullets

  • If we accept that despite our best intentions, we WILL run into resistance or reach for the phone, we can meet those moments with the appropriate amount of willpower and self-compassion

  • Even though I haven't lifted weights since the Obama administration, I liked this analogy of imagining yourself at the gym: you wouldn't get down on yourself for struggling to rep out a heavy set…you went in knowing you would be running up against resistance and that’s part of why you’re there

  • Sure, put your phone on DND and time-block your calendar for deep work, but don't expect these things to guarantee you immunity from the instant gratification monkey 

Borrowed from waitbutwhy, the relatable illustration 🐐 

Ironically, I've been hardcore procrastinating on finishing this post about procrastination. It started about 2 months ago when I had the audacious idea that I could distill all the ideas from Oliver Burkeman into one brilliant post about Time. After many attempts to focus my thoughts into passable writing, I threw up the white flag, scrapped everything, and decided to get real meta by writing about what was holding me back from writing. The words finally started to flow, and writing about procrastination felt like an ingenious way to finally get the monkey off my back. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before I was second-guessing my work and greeted by another character I'll call the perfectionism porcupine (spoiler alert- he's also kinda a dickhead).

Thankfully, there’s no room for that kind of talk in this tub, so I’m chalking this up as a W and sending it out to you all. If you're reading this and there's something meaningful to you that you've been procrastinating on, let me know in the comments. Accountability has a nice way of lighting a fire under your ass, and hot tub dreams are meant to be chased, not procrastinated on.

Until next time,

Brandon