Some Anti-Procrastination Tricks

Some folks enjoying an activity I do my best to make disappear... (Image by Marie-Michèle Bouchard, via Unsplash, license.)

Today is the day.

I have a limited number of orders to place or errands to plan in order to take care of my Christmas gift-giving obligations. By the end of the day, I will have what I regard as the most stressful part of the holiday season either taken care of, or just a few well-defined tasks away from completion.

I am very lucky in that regard: Although I will grouse about it, my wife's enjoyment of online shopping spares me from just about all of that.

And yet, I will still have a hard time getting started, because I don't at all enjoy shopping.

In that vein, here is a bullet list of three tips to "start working despite not feeling like it," taken from a blog post that elaborates on all of them:

1. "Screw it, let's do it;"
2. Start sloppy; and
3. Start small.

The first is a quote from billionaire Richard Branson, and all of these remind me a little of the (other) two-minute rule, which I blogged a few weeks ago.

In any event, this post is mostly here as a reminder to myself, but if it helps any passer-by get something out of the way, I'll be glad of that, too.

-- CAV