February 15, 2007

Get busy

Q.How does anybody get any work done? Between emails, IMs, youtube and blogs, it seems I never get around to the stuff I'm paid to do. How can I get motivated?
-Guilty Goof-off

A. This may seem counterintuitive, but you need to take on more work. Find the biggest, hairiest project that no one else wants to touch and volunteer to solve it.
This is the first step of my “Productive Procrastination” theory. It’s too easy to put off small jobs till the last minute. So trick yourself into doing them as a way to avoid that huge project looming over your head.

Of course, the real trick is making sure that the huge, nasty project gets canceled before you actually start on it.

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