Background#
Natural born procrastinator#
Fig. 1 A procrastinator busy procrastinating. Image purchased with rights for unlimited web distribution by P. Bellec from shutterstock ID 1427368160#
I am a procrastinator. More precisely, I have difficulties to start, follow up, and finish tasks, which date from when I was a little kid. When I was 8 years old, my teacher at the time gave me the nickname turtle, I guess because I was slow picking up on what she wanted me to do. As a teenager, my sister called me autistic, and seemed genuinely concerned about my supposed inability to navigate the world. Whatever zoological, clinical or prophetical truth these observations may have held (spoiler: turtle? nope | autistic? to be determined | upcoming doom? I actually turned out OK), I have beyond doubt struggled my entire life to get done what I am supposed to do.
As a student, I got by just fine as a procrastinator. Bills got paid late, side-projects with friends got delayed indefinitely, but I seemed to be able to immerse myself deeply in whatever subject matter I was studying. This way of life proved quite successful in the university world. As a young and busy professional, constant procrastination became highly problematic, as I needed to manage complex projects, and an increasing number of people started depending on me to get many things done. Things only got worst when I got kids. Procrastination started having dire real-world consequences.
To combat procrastination, I have implemented and experimented with many systems, inspired by various books, articles, friends and youtube videos. There were short bursts of (unsustainable) progress, but overall I would say these early attempts mostly failed. I still picked up many good ideas along the way. So, after years of experiments and trials, I am happy to share my to-do list system that helps me to get things done, at least most of the time and more or less in the order of priority I assign to them!
Structured procrastination#
The people who I suspect may benefit maximally from this to-do approach are the readers of a little red book on procrastination by some Stanford philosophy professor[1]. The book was very successful, so procrastination must be an issue for many people. An important insight of the little red book is that many procrastinators actually do do things, sometimes a lot of things, but generally not those that they are supposed to do. In the case of the Stanford professor in philosophy, a self-confessed life-long procrastinator, it is particularly obvious: getting a permanent job at Stanford is quite a professional achievement, so he must have got some things done. I am myself doing remarkably well professionally, especially considering how much time I spend not doing what I am supposed to[2]. The key take away: Procrastinators can be successful, even wildly so.
As it becomes apparent that procrastinators can reach some level of success, one may even start seeing benefits to procrastination (and there are a few). The eventual professional achievements of procrastinators should not suggest that procrastination is any less of a problem than it really is. Procrastination undeniably takes its toll, with important emails going unanswered, deadlines unmet with negative consequences for many people, and a painful guilt of not doing what one is supposed to do. So no matter what level of professional and personal success one may achieve, procrastination is (mostly) a bad thing.
Inspiration can still be drawn in some respects from successful procrastinators. For them, as they are successful, there is a parallel world of projects actually progressing in spite of all the tasks which are not getting done. The little red book offers a singularly brilliant idea: could it be that successful procrastinators procrastinate by doing something useful? In other words, in a magic judo move, could one use the strength of procrastination to defeat procrastination itself? This approached was coined by the Stanford university professor as structured procrastination, and is the secret sauce behind the to-do list for procrastinators.
Life after the little red book#
I admire very much the little red book and the Stanford University professor who came up with it. The idea of structured procrastination is brilliant. But the book still falls short on two counts. First, the little red book does not offer a full-fledge to-do system for procrastinators, only hints at how it could work. Second, the little red book does not even attempt at digging up the root causes of procrastination, but rather learn to accept one (procrastinator) self. The present text is an attempt at picking up where the little red book left off, and address these lingering questions. So now that you know where the to-do list for procrastinators came from, it is time to explain how it actually works.