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Why You Are Often Less Productive In The Hour Before An Appointment
An hour seems shorter when you have another task looming and has important implications for getting things done.
Sally had a free hour and decided to use the time to design a study for her dissertation. The next evening, she once again had a free hour and another study to design.
However, this time her hour had a scheduled endpoint: at the end of the hour, she needed to leave the office and meet a friend for a drink. She had the full hour before the meeting available and had nothing to do to prepare for the meeting.
However, unlike the evening before, she found herself reluctant to design her study and instead worked on a few small tasks, and answered a few quick emails.
Both evenings she had the same task to complete, and objectively the same amount of time to work on them, but she used both hours differently.
Maybe you can relate?
You have a free hour that could be used to get some writing done, you figure out you can’t get the whole article done in such a short timeframe and therefore don’t take the chance at all, using the time unproductively instead.
