Well, I’ve been in a quite oximoronic mood lately. I had a lot of work to do, and I managed to do it far better and faster than usual. I even worked more than initial planned. The job was programming related, and it was a project that I have for several months. It had a quite hectic path so far, and only in the last few weeks it started to shape as I wanted it to. And, after the last few days, I realized that what I planned was in fact easier than I thought. It happens for everybody, I agree, but this time, was something more obvious than other times.
Maybe I have a bigger work capacity? Maybe I was underworked all this time and I just start to realise that? Maybe. But that means that, until now, I constantly had a false perspective about my own work capacities.
This whole situation made me think about my procrastionation habits. Do I have them? Of course, like everybody else. Do I cultivate them? Well, that’s another question. I think I stopped cultivating my procrastinating habits, but, like in a delayed “sync”, the results are not quite ready to be shown.
So, knowing that, and being in my oximoronic state, I just come up with this strange idea about how to better support your procrastination habits by using productivity techniques. I know it sounds twisted, and, to some extent, it is. But I think it’s more funny than twisted, and you’ll see what I mean.
So, here are my 7 tips for maximizing procrastination output by using a more productive approach:
- Chose the things you have to do carefully
- chose only things that you know are undoubtely over your competence level
- chose things that are likely to be done by somebody else pretty soon, so you won’t have to do them, actually
- Always start doing a thing by postponing it. And, when postponing, pay special attention to the date, chose it to be:
- when you know you’ll be in a meeting
- when you know you’ll be doing something else (sleeping for instance)
- at a random, but somehow interesting date, such as: the third Friday from the October month of the year 2013
- Talk as much as you can about what you have to do
- talking about something actually prevents you from doing it, so you are on the safe side
- brag about it as much as you can. people will soon be bored and eventually leave you alone.
- Forget stuff
- constantly. make a habit out of it
- train to forget at least one thing per day
- exercise your forgetting techniques, if necessary hire somone to help you forget stuff completely and honestly
- Avoid interaction at all cost
- keep a low profile, like this, you won’t be assigned anything, not the smallest responsability
- if you need to interact for asking something from somebody, do it fast: hit and run, so the other guy doesn’t have time to react
- Keep (and grow) a huge tasklist
- if you intent to do more than you actually can perceive as being doable, then you’re set
- constantly add stuff to your schedule, so you won’t be caught in a situation with no escape, like being forced to actually do something
- Pretend to be tired
- start from the dawn, so you’ll get really exhausted by noon
- in a very short period of time you won’t have to pretend anymore
And, for those of you already used to my mind mapping habits, here is the mind map screenshot:
As usual, you can freely download from here: The Procrastinator Mind Map (1999).
(The mind map is in MindManager format. If you don’t have it you can buy it here – and that would be an affiliate link, meaning I’ll get paid if you make the purchase. Alternatively, you can go directly to their site and see for yourself.)
Until then: procrastinate productively 
!
Technorati Tags: procrastination, productivity, fun
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Quite amusing and a bit enlightening too!
. Some of these have parallels to good techniques for being effective, for example the postponing sounds like the ideas in “Do it tomorrow”. Forgetting stuff makes me think of the ideas in GTD, getting things out of psychic RAM. Avoiding interaction resonates with many of the tips to turn of email alerts and the like. I think all of those techniques are excellent, but it does make me realise how thin the line is between doing it right and doing it wrong.
Yes, you’re perfectly right, there is a reversed engineering process here. Of course it’s about being productive, not procrastinating, but it’s done from the “other perspective”. It’s mirrored… And I intended to be fun
I keep thinking to do all this. Only sometime it becomes difficult.
hahahaha, i had such a good laugh
thanks 
@ivalki: glad I made you laugh
Oh dear, I definitely need to train myself out of some of these. I hardly ever start a task on the day it crops up, I always schedule it for some ridiculously far off date by which time I’ve forgotten why it was relevant in the first place.
I’ve culled my IM habit completely, though. But I think that’s mostly so that I don’t get asked to do things by people.
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