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I'm convincing myself that a lot of cases of procrastination, especially at work, are just from bad management. There's a lot of bad self-management too, but for those of us in organizations with explicit management, I think there's a lot of productivity gains that could be had by having more competent management... Software really needs someone who gets Deming's management ideas but who can fully integrate them with the unique differences in software development... For "this project is so big, I don't know where to start": if you admitted that to some managers, they'd think "oh this person is incompetent" instead of "how can I help them start?" (to which there are many answers)

That and the incentives you receive differs to the incentives the business has. Align those two together and you will find you will work your ass off because you not only get a income but a passive income from your work.

> I've noticed that waiting until the last minute to do something you need to do OFTEN results in never having to do it at all. You end up doing only things that really needed to get done.

Don't tell my boss this, but I have noticed it too.

Protip : Wait even a little bit after it's too late and you might not even have anything to do at all.

What if you are being yelled at/under pressure?

If I may explain a joke, if you are being yelled at then you are not fired yet, so you must procrastinate a bit more until you can not do anything at all.

Oh, I thought it referred to being dead, not fired. Whoops.

That would do too. In fact, only the OP can tell the difference.

The GP was referring to being fired.

Indeed. And think about the amount of damage accomplished by those people who do everything that's asked of them.

Seems you can recognize the smell of unnecessary work!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m2rPWF3FSxg/TaZ_9Uj7WmI/AAAAAAAAAu...

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” -- Douglas Adams

>Don't tell my boss this, but I have noticed it too.

Likely, he/she uses this more than you do. It's standard in management, and I've heard some managers listing it as the key to furthering your career. You'll always be given more stuff than you can handle. So you learn not to do all of it.

Specifically 3 "I'm not sure what I would do after I finish that work (what the next step is)", has definitely been something I've personally identified in the past. This article is actually the first time I've seen anyone else identify it as well.

For me personally, this list is pretty much spot on.

I can relate to your list a lot more than the one in the original article (though his last point about just plain being tired does ring very true). Addressing this one specifically:

For instance, one of mine is "this project is so big, I don't know where to start". Once I find a piece that seems like something I can get done quickly and ease me in, things tend to go a lot easier.

It's really hard to start a big task, and there are all kinds of good reasons to break it down into smaller ones, beating procrastination being just one. I tend to tackle it in this sort of way:

1. Break the task down into lots of smaller tasks.

2. Make sure the tasks have varying degrees of difficulty, with at least a few utterly trivial ones (like the actual meta-task of creating the tasks, and then sticking them onto a Trello board, for instance), some fairly easy ones that will still feel like you've actually done something substantive, and a few genuinely difficult ones.

3. The difficult tasks will, inevitably, be difficult, but if you've already accomplished 10 out of the 13 tasks, you will psychologically feel a lot better, because you'll be able to think, "I've only got three things to go!" even though you know that the three remaining things are much harder, and will in all likelihood take more time than the easy tasks you've already done.

4. Because you've structured this neatly in such a way that you've already wiped out the easy tasks, you'll be able to focus better on the remaining difficult tasks.

> Lastly, as a lifelong procrastinator, I've noticed that waiting until the last minute to do something you need to do OFTEN results in never having to do it at all. You end up doing only things that really needed to get done.

From impostor syndrom to proper fake it until you make it impostor :p

About the main point, it's true that most procrastination is often feeling overwhelmed intellectually by a system.

Depending on context and age, I used to drive head first but now it takes a lot more to do so. I try to test approaches (minimally viable x,...) so I can get even minute amount of things done and iterate but that's not very efficient so far.

"it's true that most procrastination is often feeling overwhelmed intellectually by a system"

That is definitely not true for me. And it definitely does not explain why procrastinate with small boring tasks nor why challenging interesting tasks are less procrastinated about.

Oh that's definitely but I'd say pc-ing boring tasks feels sadder in a way, which adds to the negativity. It's true that way often I'd be ready to jump for adventure, but maybe because I have no real expectation for success nor responsibility to do so.

It's about the stuff that you just don't want to do. It can be because they're boring, it can be because they're overly complicated or otherwise scary, bottom line is the incapability to control your basic urge to avoid things that are unpleasant. My best guess is that some of us just never properly learned that skill as kids.

" … waiting until the last minute to do something you need to do OFTEN results in never having to do it at all."

Like I always say: "Never put off till tomorrow something you can get out of altogether..."

>For instance, one of mine is "this project is so big, I don't know where to start". Once I find a piece that seems like something I can get done quickly and ease me in, things tend to go a lot easier. Another is "I have so many (different) things to do that I don't want to do any". Presumably this is not so different than the earlier one

And they are already covered in TFA.

I'm the same exact way

> waiting until the last minute to do something you need to do OFTEN results in never having to do it at all

True, but that can be done as part of careful planning. It does not justify procrastination. (I wish it could)

I can't imagine doing careful planning and also doing a lot of procrastinating.

Careful planning is a hell of a variety of procrastination. Do enough careful planning, and really figure out what it will take to get things done, and more often than not the powers that be won't think they can pull it off with the resources available, and you then won't have to dive in and try.

Sounds more like overthinking :)