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Leveraging procrastination to get more work done

Procrastinating and getting work done? Don't those two things conflict with each other?

So this is something I've used for years to get tons of things finished... to use this technique you need more than one task in mind... and these are PRODUCTIVE things...you cannot include things like playing games, facebook or other time wasters...

So lets look at my tasks/goals right now... I'm working on three novels, concept+modeling for a new film, learning Unity3d, working on a game, working on making my business better, and working on music for future soundtracks...

Now doing all that stuff all at once would probably make you crazy as you can only really do one at a time... Now like everyone else I have a tendency to procrastinate, to rebel and say "I don't feel like doing this any more I'm going to do X"

Now usually for many people I'm going to guess X isn't something productive... its like playing games or texting or floating around on social media or something... for me its reading my google reader feeds, playing games on my gameboy, talking to other human beings, or going outside haha

We all have a tendency to rebel and we need a way to trick our mind and keep moving forward with our goals... let it rebel! yes its such a huge rebel! BUT its going to rebel by working on one of those others tasks/goals...

For example... I was working on game/unity3d stuff and I wanted to rebel so I starting working on this novel for 3 days then I wanted to rebel so I did by writing a script for a new movie in 3 days. Once the script was finished I was "supposed" to do concept art but I'm rebelling by going back to work on the novel.

Ya see how it works? Its a constant cycle! You can stay interested and you can kill the monotony by using this technique that I've used for years.

You can even use this in making a film since there's so many tasks to do... you can flip from lighting to animating to editing to compositing etc...

So it may seem chaotic at first but as time passes you'll start to stack completed projects... the thing that I always tell myself is that as long as I'm moving forward on SOMETHING that I want to do then its a good thing.

Think of it like an RPG and your character has HP, MP, and DEF... and everyday you're given 1pt to add on to one of those attributes... its takes 10 points lets say to level up... now you could add 1pt to HP everyday for ten days BUT in the technique I'm discussing you will add 1pt to HP on day one- 1pt to MP on day two- 1pt on DEF on day three then back to HP.

So make a list of the goals you want to accomplish and get procrastinating! ^_^


Comments

  1. thanks for the advice man! great tips.

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  2. i have mixed results with this... when it works good it's rly great but sometimes try as i might i can't trick myself out of my so called "research/spectator" mode. HOWEVER... effectiveness goes up quite a bit all around if i find the willpower to turn off the internet!!

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