See Where Procrastination Leads You

What is your favorite way to procrastinate?

For me, it's often Wikipedia rabbit holes. "How many Boeing 747s are still used by commercial airlines?" -- that was recently my way to avoid a Todoist list of 20 items.

Clearly, reading about 747s is just avoidance -- I don't think my career would get better if I knew more about this.

But, surprisingly, procrastination can also be a good thing.

First, remember that context switching is very expensive for our brains. So, if you need to immerse yourself in a big task, your brain can't switch gears immediately. An artist would spend an hour sharpening his pencils before he starts drawing. The famous writer John Steinbeck began each working day by writing letters to his editor -- before he could start writing his novel, the real thing. Maya Angelou would start her day at 6:30 a.m. by playing solitaire, to occupy the "little mind" so the "big mind" could get to work. These ramp-up rituals can look suspiciously like procrastination -- don't blame yourself for them, they help your brain gradually turn itself on.

Second, sometimes, you avoid one task by starting another. Yes, sometimes, that "another cool task" leads nowhere and just wastes time. But often, your brain has had something brewing, subconsciously -- and it's telling you that it's time to make that thing happen! This is exactly how I started building MyNextProject.dev -- I was planning to work on other things, but I just felt an instant urge to prototype something I had in my head. So, procrastination led me to a startup!

The key here is mindfulness. When you see that you're procrastinating, try to classify what's actually going on. If you're sharpening your pencils, or your brain is leading you to something cool that it wants to think about -- allow it and see where it leads you. If you're reading about 747s -- well, just close that page and get back to work! :-D