Response to the thread on beating procrastination
http://th3core.com/talk/water-coolerextra/beating-procrastination/45/
This week has been a near record procrastination week for me.... and then a friend posts on Facebook (which is an essential tool for procrastination) this:
http://ehdom.com/flowchart/
If I get stuck and start being productive, I have the large version of this open in a browser window and I can get right back to procrastination.
PS - notice the "You are here" arrow :-)
I have a horrible problem with procrastination. Just horrible.
I have been forced, the last week, to simply embrace it.
That said, there's some decent advice in a book called The Now Habit. It's old and you can probably get it cheap.
I find it helps a lot to make action lists that have major goals broken into lots of short-and-sweet tasks.
Even if I'm not in the right mindset for a large task, there's usually a few smaller things I can get done that will advance the cause.
This quote has been my guiding star for several years:
QuoteGreat things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. - Vincent van Gogh
If you get interrupted, deal with the interruption then get back on task. If your mind wanders, note any useful ideas that turn up, then get back on task. If you remember something else that you need to do, get it done then get back on task. If you need a break, take it, then get back on task.
Conversely, if you're "on a roll" and getting important things done, drop everything else you possibly can and keep rolling!
Figure out what you need to do ... then keep doing it.
Bucky - you might have seen a rough version of this over at WMW. Somebody read that and then wrote a blog post and I thought... I can do that too. Essentially, it's what you suggest... with teeth!
http://raisedbyturtles.org/make-slacking-hurt/
It hasn't been working for me lately because I'm sort of letting myself decompress and meander a bit, on purpose. So I've taken a semi-conscious "productivity holiday"
I sent a link to the .png deep inside Cisco. Watch the company grind to a halt.
As for dealing with my own procrastination, I tend to use jobs-I-hate to drive me to do jobs-I-hate-less. This works pretty well aside from the fact that I accumulate a horrific batch of crap down at the bottom of the work pyramid. Given enough time the horrors tend to gel, crystallize, and then spontaneously erupt with full-blown must-do status. This system seems to work for me in my freelance job style ...but it drives Louise crazy.