Structured procrastination: The lesser known procrastination you’re guilty of.
As an entrepreneur
You have a lot going on, no doubt!
You also know the important tasks and likely have a plan for the next few weeks, months or even years. Look at you! How stellar.
I mean you show up everyday. Some days you get a lot done and other days are rough, slow and lazy.
No biggie. At least you show up daily.
But let’s pause for a moment.
When you show up
Do you find yourself rearranging items on your todo list for that day so it looks perfect?
What about refreshing your email every 7 minutes to see if you can respond to a new email rapidly?
I don’t know about you but umm I have the tweaking and re-tweaking that stubborn CSS div on the oh-my-god-so-perfect-landing-page. And to be honest, I’ve been working on the same page for a tad-bit too long.
You know it. I know it. And yeah, yeah, whatever. There’s still marketing to do.
And writing.
And creating the email list.
And selling.
👉 This is structured procrastination at work. Well talked about by Dan Ariely (A famous Prof in the field of Behavioral Economics).
We spend lots of time on simple, easy-to-accomplish tasks and never getting to the important ones.
Because crossing off the simple ones give everyone a ✨dopamine boost✨ and makes you feel productive. But you are not.
Shooting for the small, easy tasks
You’d do anything to suppress that guilt that you should be working on another task — the important one.
How about finishing an item that you didn’t have on your list.
- Add it to your list.
- Then cross it off.
- Oh the feels 🥰.
“Didn’t come here to be attacked like that”
I know. But:
🌟Awareness is the first step.
🏃♂️Taking action is next.
🧐 Ask yourself: “what major task am I avoiding?”
Thanks for reading
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