Structured procrastination

What It Means

Structured procrastinationProcrastinationPutting off a task you intended to do, even though you expect the delay to leave you worse off, often to escape how the task makes you feel. See more is a method from Stanford philosopher John Perry for people who put things off. It rests on his observation that a procrastinator will happily do hard, useful work as long as it's a way of avoiding something that seems even more important. So you keep a list with important-seeming tasks at the top and other worthwhile tasks further down, and you get the lower ones done while dodging the top.

How People Say It

• "I reorganized the whole garage to avoid writing that report."
• "My inbox is empty, which means the proposal is still waiting."
• "I'm structurally procrastinating, it's a real method."

The Breakdown

How to set it up

1. Write a list of everything you need to do.
2. Put one or two tasks at the top that seem urgent and important.
3. Below them, list other tasks that are worthwhile in their own right.
4. When you avoid the top task, pick something further down the list instead of scrolling or snacking.
5. Every so often, move a new task to the top so the old top tasks slip down and get done in turn.

Steps 1 to 4 follow Perry's essay. Step 5 is Buhata's own reading of how the list keeps moving.

Try it today. Rewrite today's to-do listTo-do listA written list of the tasks you plan to do, checked or crossed off as each one is finished. See more with the task you most dread at the top, and notice how many of the others you finish.

Where it fits

The last two rows are Buhata's own judgment.

Where It Comes From

John Perry, a professor emeritus of philosophy at Stanford, wrote the essay "How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done" in 1996. It won the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in Literature, and Perry later expanded it into the book The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing, published by Workman.

Good to Know

Structured procrastination works around the habit rather than fixing it. If a single task has a firm deadline with real consequences, such as a tax filing, set that one a time and a reminder rather than trusting the list to reach it.

Related Terms and Categories

• Procrastination

  Putting off a task you intended to do, even though you expect the delay to leave you worse off, often to escape how the task makes you feel.

• Eat the frog

  A time management rule from Brian Tracy's book Eat That Frog!: do your biggest, most important task first thing in the morning, before easier work.

• Eisenhower matrix

  A four-box grid that sorts tasks by two questions, whether each is urgent and whether it's important, to decide what to do now and what to plan.

• To-do list

  A written list of the tasks you plan to do, checked or crossed off as each one is finished.

• Perfectionism

  Holding yourself or others to standards so high they can't be met, and judging yourself harshly when they aren't.

Productivity methods and focus