To be productive or to procrastinate. It’s the daily struggle and mental battle we all deal with. We all want to be as productive as possible, but so many of us procrastinate. We don’t even know we’re doing it. It’s a constant tug of war between browsing through our emails, trying to find something that interests us vs actually getting the work done. While we’re all striving to be super productive, we sit there contemplating the next thing to work on, and we spend countless hours doing it.

You know when you’re bored, and you walk into the kitchen, open the fridge and just stare for a couple of minutes and proceed to closing the door and walking away? That’s procrastination. That’s exactly what you’re doing with your work. Your inbox, is the fridge.

Why do we procrastinate so much and how do we get out of it?

We’ve narrowed procrastination down to these main contributors:

The work is too challenging;
Too many distractions;

Let’s figure out how we can overcome procrastination and achieve productivity.

The work is too challenging

As a new manager, you’re stepping into unknown territory. The workload is very different from what you’ve experienced in the past years as an individual contributor. There are new terms, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, business reviews, strategic plans, business cases, etc., etc., etc. It’s normal not to know what any of these requests are when you’re transitioning into management. These requests can seem daunting and initially, too challenging to take on. There’s probably an element of fear in asking for help or more context, as you don’t want to create an impression of not knowing what to do.

The reality: no one has trained you or job shadowed you on how to complete these asks. Having to complete these requests with no prior experience is unrealistic. In not knowing how to complete what is being asked of us, we procrastinate. We let the requests sit, while we muster up the confidence to ask for help.

To avoid procrastination, you need to seek help immediately. This may seem terrifying, but it’s better to fail fast and earlier on than later.

Start with the following:

Read through what’s being asked of you.
Open the attachments and documents that were sent over.
Do some research on your own to see if you could figure out what they’re referring to.
Make note of all the concerns and questions you have.
Seek clarification from the sender, in the same day of receiving the request. Don’t let this spill into the next day.
Respond to the requester, as soon as you possibly can with:
- A list of questions you have about what’s being asked;
- A request for a meeting time where you can connect live to discuss the concerns you have and provide context.
During the meeting, make sure you take charge.
Confidence is key.
Book the meeting, book the meeting room.
Put the document on the big screen.
Walk through the document and ask your questions throughout the meeting.

Once you have your answers, begin breaking down the request/assignment into smaller tasks. Give yourself deadlines to complete each of the smaller tasks. If you get stuck on something, reach out again and seek further clarification.

By taking this approach, you are progressively working on the challenging assignment, showing that you are taking initiative, and are being proactive while demonstrating a sense of urgency in leadership.

Overall, you avoid procrastination by signaling you need help early on, attaining clarification where you run into road blocks, and implement smaller achievable tasks within the assignment.

In this scenario, procrastination comes from lack of skillset and the complexity of the request. Many people feel they need to complete a request all in one sweep. That’s may be too challenging for new managers. Breaking down the task into smaller achievable steps, prevents procrastination and promotes productivity.

Too many distractions

As a new manager, you’ll most likely promote an open door policy. You’re probably testing out the servant leadership style and want to foster an inclusive collaborative environment. Great! But when do you get your work done? If you’re constantly in meetings, or your team is in your office throughout the day, or pinging you on teams, you’re not giving any attention to the work being asked by your leadership team. How do you balance being supportive when your team needs you, but completing the requests coming from your leadership team?

You need to set aside time for deep work. Just as you set aside time for your team, you need to set aside time for you to complete your incoming requests. You need to be strategic in how you go about setting aside time for deep work. In leadership, you may have an agenda for the day, and 70% of it get’s wiped because emergencies and pressing issues came up. That’s typical in management and leadership. You can avoid this by strategically doing your work in off-peak hours.

Peak hours are the times where everyone’s in the office or online. It’s during the hours you find your team needs your support the most. If your team works 9-5, consider doing your work from 8-9 or 5-6. If your team comes in at 9, their first hour is getting setup, organizing and prioritizing. Your downtime could be anywhere between 8-9h30/10. If the team finishes at 5pm, their last hour is closing out tasks in preparation to end their day. Your downtime could be anywhere between 4-5h30. Finding off peak hours to complete your work, would allow you the distraction free time to focus on getting your work done.

By getting your work done in the off peak hours, you can focus on productivity vs procrastinating.

Think back to when you last had a productive day. What did it look like? How did the day start and end?

Implementing deep work into your daily agenda is allowing you to focus on completing one task at a time. No multitasking. No side bar conversations, no distractions. Just put your head down and get the work done.

It feels amazing.

How can you create more of these productive feel good work days?