Reserving some work for tomorrow

[NA_johnny]

Have any of you guys felt the impulse to reserve some work for tomorrow, like deliberately setting aside some not-so-urgent work so you’d still have something to be busy about the next day, in order to avoid some task on your list that you might eventually have to deal with, in case you ran out of “other things” to do? And while you’re at it, you’re silently wishing that some other easy task would emerge, so you could say to the task you’re avoiding, “Ha! I have to get this other thing done first, AND THEN I’ll get to you... (That is if you don’t blow up first)” How do you handle these tricks you play with yourself?

 

[AdamMiller81]

Sometimes its needed

Well, I'll admit, I do sometimes reserve some work for tomorrow. On occasion, it is because I'm pushing it off, but not always. Much of my work is project based, and depending on how many projects are ongoing at the current time (not really dictated by me), sometimes I'm swamped with things to do, and other times the list grows a little more slowly. Thus, if its one of these downtimes, which don't happen too often, but do happen, considering the fact that I am in an office surrounded by people, I've got to have something to do. Thus, if I know the next day or two is going to be slow, and I have a few less urgent items on the list (such as filing some documents that I'd just received originals for, updating a few spreadsheets and the like) I may delay it for a day or two to give me somewhere to start.

 

[jkgrossi]

Have any of you guys felt the impulse to reserve some work for tomorrow, like deliberately setting aside some not-so-urgent work so you’d still have something to be busy about the next day, in order to avoid some task on your list that you might eventually have to deal with, in case you ran out of “other things” to do? And while you’re at it, you’re silently wishing that some other easy task would emerge, so you could say to the task you’re avoiding, “Ha! I have to get this other thing done first, AND THEN I’ll get to you... (That is if you don’t blow up first)” How do you handle these tricks you play with yourself?

Sure... it's called procrastination. I think that even the most diligent of us deal with this on a pretty regular basis. Have you asked yourself why you're avoiding the thing that you're procrastinating on? For me, usually the most common reason why I procrastinate is that I haven't got as granular as I need to be with my Next Action... in other words, what I've got written down on my list is still too high-level for me to actually move forward, and when I think about it and break it down further into an actual Next Action, it's enough for me to move forward (and once I'm moving, it turns out not to be as bad as I anticipated).

Jim