MC80 Why Do We Procrastinate? (or what is procrastination, anyway?)

Join our hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti.

Most of us are familiar with avoiding a task that we should be doing. But is there more to it? On the one hand we worry that procrastination leads us to being totally unproductive. But is being hyper-efficient realistic? Don't we sometimes need to break the cycle of busywork? Procrastination might actually be telling us something important about the task and ourselves.

Managers might find themselves rescheduling a difficult conversation or delaying a decision. It can be helpful to dig into the reasons why. Is it a task that we just don't feel like doing? Has the task become boring through constant repetition? Do we need something more (e.g. context, support, perspective, data, etc) before we are ready to tackle it?

This is a difficult thing to self-analyse because we are so good at hiding things from ourselves. And this is where managers might be uniquely placed to help their teams. If we become curious when we see someone procrastinating, we might help them understand why they are stuck. And help them make better decisions about what to do next.

00:00 mins Tim is less prone to procrastination as a manager than he was as an individual contributor, mostly because he feels guilty. Similarly Pilar will always prioritise work that someone else is dependent on over work that is "just for her".

2:00 Tim admits that he sometimes procrastinates because he doesn't want to be seen to be too responsive.

3:40 Pilar sometimes schedules a delayed email response so that people don't get used to an immediate answer from her. Tim classifies this as getting your computer to do the procrastination for you!

5:00 Procrastination can also happen when we are starting something but haven't yet gotten into the flow of the task.

5:50 Pilar shares a time when a team-mate's procrastination was just the symptom to a bigger issue.

7:15 The paradox of choice (or decision paralysis) is an issue for Tim, most notably shown via his inability to tackle his inbox. But as a manager much more of the work is happening real time - for example in meetings - which forced him to become more efficient.

10:00 It's harder to procrastinate work that has visible impact, like preparing for a meeting, versus tasks like responding to an email which has a lower "procrastination penalty".

11:00 Pilar wrote a book called "The Remote Workers Guide to Time Management" and it has a whole chapter on procrastination. One of the things she realised in writing the book is that she procrastinates by coming up with more work for herself. And this might be because most of her work now is self-directed. Whereas back in the theatre company when there was one production at a time with many people depending on it, she was less prone to distraction.

12:45 In a perfect example of brains telling us only what we want to hear, Tim relates how delaying tasks has often lead to improved outcomes for him.

14:15 There are so many reasons why we delay. In might be discomfort, boredom, overwhelm or a sense of not feeling ready. If we take time to understand why we are procrastinating then it can help us make better choices about how to