The Danger Of Procrasti-doing

How you can deceive yourself by creating an illusion of productivity

Photo by Randy Jacob on Unsplash

Ever sit down to outline your Medium story, but find yourself arranging the stationery drawer instead? No writing was done but you did set those pens right. Well — you were procrasti-doing.

Procrasti-doing, per Ray Sydney-Smith, is procrastination associated with doing something other than the task at hand. It comes in two flavors:

1. You are supposed to work on one project but end up doing something completely different.
2. You do the parts of a project out of order, completing non-essential aspects first.

To deal with the first type ask yourself: “Is this activity time sensitive?” If not, revert to your original task. For the second type, take a set amount of time to finish the activity, then refocus on the main task.

Procrasti-doing is dangerous: it creates the self-deceptive illusion of productivity. We must learn to recognize it and nip it in the bud.