How to Procrastinate and still get things done

Are you ever doing nothing?

Believe it or not, but I was in the middle of the article and then jumped to this tab. I wouldn't have continued reading it if it wasn't for replying to your post. You don't need that list, just think of one thing that's more important than making this list.

Remember that the list can't be the most important thing, as the success is not guaranteed.

Interesting, but the hard part of this is really knowing what is and isn't important.

For instance, in the article he talks about how he "has" to publish his reading list at the start of the summer and how he puts it off a couple of months because he thinks it isn't really important. That's nice, but maybe the students who want to sort out their books or even do some reading over the summer and the hard working people in the admin office and bookshop disagree. "I got almost daily reminders from the department secretary; students sometimes asked me what we would be reading;" Sounds like his procrastinating on this caused problems for others.

The problem with actually implementing this system is that, after drawing up said list of things that need doing, I would simply go and find myself doing a bunch of other stuff, stuff which isn't on the list, but is capable of making itself seem important and worthwhile enough to me to keep me from feeling bad. Stuff like reading that book I bought a year ago, practising piano, reading articles about interesting stuff online, writing and then scrapping the opening few pages of a novel...

The point is, making such a list of tasks to do would simply give me something else to avoid entirely. I might even progress to having lists of lists of tasks.

I realise this article isn't serious, but it's interesting to consider. I could never make it work, because pandering to procrastination like this would just engender further procrastination and further doing of things which can seem important but are really utterly unimportant.

There is almost always something you would rather be doing than what you are doing right now.

Or, as designed by academia and force-fed into the business structure, the PMBOK. http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Project-Management-Body-Knowledg...