Try Not To Delay

How delaying can cause trouble, and why not delay your work.

“Stress doesn’t come from hard work. Stress comes from avoiding what we know we need to face.”.

Jeff Bezos shared this in an interview. I saw it a few years ago, but the lesson remain today.

This week, I feel like I want to dump some thoughts and use my free time to write about productivity and how delaying actions could affect one’s work.

Why do we delay work

I’m no expert in psychology, but I’ve spent a fair share amount of time interviewing people, primarily managers and developers, and here are a few things I found resurfacing the most.

Procrastination

Procrastination is a complex behavior with various underlying causes. I, too, have experienced it in college and at work. It becomes more evident and alarming if you and others feel the same about your job if you miss deadlines or always do poor-quality work.

What I find helpful to do

• Set internal deadlines: Be strict with yourself, and set internal deadlines when you want to finish a task. You can add a buffer to the external deadline. Example: If a project is due Friday, aim to finish it by Wednesday.
• Social contracts: Talk to your manager or peers and commit. This can help you remember to do the task at hand now that other people are also expecting you to do it. Example: Tell your colleague, “I’ll have that report ready for you by end of day tomorrow.”

Feeling overwhelmed

Starting a new project or a daunting task can also be another reason people delay their work, especially when there are no clear guidelines or enough context to start the work. So, the project you’ve been wanting to work on gets done “later”. Eventually, it piles up and it becomes much harder to start.

What you can try

• Two-minute rule: Work on the project for two minutes. If you don’t like it, move on for the day. Otherwise, continue working on a 2-minute chunk of work. Example: Spend two minutes brainstorming ideas for a presentation.
• Swiss-cheese method: Break down larger tasks into smaller, more manageable segments. Example: Instead of “write a blog post,” start with “outline the main points.

No clarity

Starting is easy, but finishing work requires immense clarity. You should know your “why” you do what you do. Sometimes, we work hard enough that everything else becomes autopilot. You should aim to deliver value than just finishing the work. With clarity, a lot of work and effort can be well-spent.

What I think can help you

• Ask questions: Don’t hesitate to seek clarification and clear expectations. Example: “Can you explain the importance of building this feature for this audience?”
• Embrace ambiguity: There will always be unknowns. View them as learning opportunities.

It’s a wrap

Take actions

• If a task takes only two minutes, do it.
• If a task is too ambiguous, ask questions and break it down.
• Don’t be too hard on yourself on those tough days. We all have them!

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on my email 👋.

Pause and reflect… when was the last time you procrastinated, and what did you do about it?