Time and again, investigating together with my clients into their relationship with time, I find recurrent patterns when it comes to not getting enough things done during the week.
Some of them I’ve also experienced myself, firsthand. Each one of these behaviors has a positive side, when used with care and awareness, and a negative one – when used unconsciously.
1. Over-perfecting something that does not require it
Unless you are working on your masterpiece, chances are that what you are supposed to deliver does not require over-perfecting. Reading the same email for 15 times before sending it, staying until 1 a.m. to make a pixel perfect PowerPoint presentation slide that you will show for 30 sec, over-engineering a piece of code that worked perfectly fine already – these are just examples of things I’ve seen being done out of the “Be perfect” driver and not for the sake of the delivery/project. Of course, going the extra mile makes us reach high performance, but be aware when you do it for reaching performance and when you do it because you compulsively need to.
Disclaimer: if you have the time, the resources and the will to deliver your ideal work, then do it consciously, meaning being aware that you are consciously over-perfecting something and knowing exactly why you are doing it. This will prevent you from feeling guilty for “spending too much time on this”.
Antidote: ask yourself “What is required of me in this situation?”, “What do I want to do in this situation?”, “When do I think that I will be satisfied with the result of my work?”, “What is realistic/pragmatic for me to do in this situation?”
2. Doing tasks which are not in your responsibility to do
Unclear role definitions, fuzzy personal boundaries, times of high uncertainty, missing agreements – there are so many causes to accepting to do work that should not /is not in your responsibility.
Antidote: ask yourself “Am I the right person to solve this?”, “Do I have all the skills, data, authority etc. to solve this?”, “Knowing that this is not my task, do I still want to deliver it myself?”
3. Spending too much time thinking about how bad you feel about spending too much time in various useless activities
It might sound funny reading this phrase, but it is a very stressful place to be. You are feeling guilty for not doing enough work and you spend so much energy and focus on this thought, that you end up having even less time and energy to get work done.
Antidote: Be kind to yourself. Also, have a daily 3 min time for yourself at the end of the day, when you answer these questions:
- What are the 3 things that went well today?
- What did I learn today?
- What do I want to do differently next time?
4. Compulsively doing things you know that are neither important nor urgent, although the TODO list is only getting bigger
Antidote: Understand your reason behind this behavior; procrastination can have multiple causes, and it is important to get clarity into why you are procrastinating.
In some cases, one could simply not feel confident enough to start with the other important tasks, or is afraid of failing; some other times, maybe you are just too tired – physically and mentally – and have no more energy for anything else, or simply you are supposed to do things which you do not like, do not approve with or are not aligned with your values and with who you are.
Nevertheless, the first step in this direction is to accept that there is a need which is unmet, and procrastination is a symptom of that. One way to deal with procrastination is to clarify the need behind it and meet that need in other, more effective ways.
If you would like to explore this space together with me, let me know.