I have a serious procrastination problem (of this type and others) myself and agree with the conclusion, but have struggled to actually adjust my own calibration in response to data. From personal experience, I strongly recommend we take our cues from Mary Poppins here: In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun; you find the fun, and snap, the job’s a game. Not “gamification” in the sense I usually encounter it (which almost always feels fake to me) but more just a change of framing.
My wife and I periodically do what we call Tasks From A Hat. We write everything that needs doing on folded up post-its, and toss in an extra handful of fun things to break the jobs up, and take turns picking them from a hat until we hit our limit for the day. We still wait way to long before setting aside a day to do this, but it’s a more more pleasant way to shrink the backlog.
I have a serious procrastination problem (of this type and others) myself and agree with the conclusion, but have struggled to actually adjust my own calibration in response to data. From personal experience, I strongly recommend we take our cues from Mary Poppins here: In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun; you find the fun, and snap, the job’s a game. Not “gamification” in the sense I usually encounter it (which almost always feels fake to me) but more just a change of framing.
My wife and I periodically do what we call Tasks From A Hat. We write everything that needs doing on folded up post-its, and toss in an extra handful of fun things to break the jobs up, and take turns picking them from a hat until we hit our limit for the day. We still wait way to long before setting aside a day to do this, but it’s a more more pleasant way to shrink the backlog.