Waiting Until the Time is Right (or Not!)

Originally posted on procrastinators-anonymous.org, 5 August, 2006 - 9:16am

A common source of procrastination is the idea that we have to wait until we have a big block of time before starting on a task - any task. One of my great frustrations in life is not being able to get done everything I need to get done even when I am trying. I think this is because I don't make good use of the many small pockets of time that are available throughout a day.

People who don't procrastinate and are efficient about getting stuff done tend to use these small pockets of time. Making use of this time is one of the purposes of the Getting Things Done (GTD) strategy (author David Allen) of organizing a to-do list by where you are rather than by project. When you're home and you have 15 minutes, you look at your "at home" list. When you're waiting in a doctor's office, you look at your "anywhere" list, and do something on that.

The importance of using small pockets of time as a differentiator between procrastinators and people who get things done was established in controlled studies by Robert Boice. He worked with tenure-track professors on writing articles for publication. (It's publish or perish in academia.) The professors who used small pockets of time - 15 minutes between classes, etc. - were the ones who published. The professors who were always waiting for a free afternoon never got any articles written because they never had a free afternoon!

Modern life is full of demands and interruptions. If you are waiting for a large block of time before you start something, you likely will never start it because the large block of time will never come. Learning to use make good use of small blocks of time is a key to getting things done.