We all hate procrastination. It makes us feel like a lazy bum at first and later like a pile of stress and desperation when the shit ultimately hits the fan. It diminishes our sense of self-worth and makes our lives miserable in the long run.

The go-to solution to procrastination is usually seeking help in the form of to-do lists. You know the drill: you've been there using apps to tick off items from your list and to get your well-deserved motivation bump.

It genuinely works if you don't give up early on. There is an unpredictable and undefined tipping point where you start showing up every day to accomplish something. It somehow makes your tasks feeling less like a chore, which certainly helps with a tremendous improvement to your morale.

All fun and games until you realize you're only committed to mindless ticking off items in your list instead of actually getting the important stuff done. Instead of caring about what you're accomplishing, you care about how many checkmarks, squares, or dots you get, how long is your current streak, and how beautiful your productivity chart looks.

Again, you know the drill, right? As a far from perfect human, you’re likely to take the path of least resistance more often than not, meaning you still accomplish something but usually not the hardest and most important ones. Then comes the super weird sensation of feeling productive while also falling short on your obligations.

You probably just didn't know it had a name: productive procrastination.

Yep, that's the name of the beauty making your delayed tasks haunt you for weeks even though you didn't spare energy doing stuff and being productive. The thing eventually biting your ass when you realize there is just a short night between you and your deadline.  The one you can't blame when your wife asks why in hell are you up late in the night if you already worked hard and seemed busy during the entire week.

It's important to be aware of this deceiving thing called productive procrastination. When you just procrastinate, you pretty much always recognize you're doing it. With productive procrastination, on the other hand, you hardly realize you're falling into the trap unless you know about it.

That’s why it can be way more harmful than just standard procrastination. Not knowing what causes you to always get buried in overdue tasks while working hard and feeling busy, can have greater negative effects on your morale than being conscious about your bad habits.

A silly trick I use to avoid productive procrastination?

I just tick off the easy-to-avoid item from my to-do list before actually working on it. I’m not a liar, I’m not a cheater, and I live up to my own words, so the moment I say to the world that a particular task is completed, I just can’t go back and decide not to finish it. It becomes a matter of moral integrity to get it done.

As I said, it's a silly trick.

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PS: I'm more than happy to know your thoughts on this! Feel free to get in touch with me at marcos@hey.com :)