Dancing Monkeys

Share this post

How I Plan to Handle Procrastination in 2023

newsletter.dancingmonkeys.net

How I Plan to Handle Procrastination in 2023

Oh and welcome back to Substack

Shahid Kamal Ahmad
Jan 3, 2023
3
2
Share
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I get a ton of stuff done, but I’m hard on myself for the things that fall by the wayside. I bet you’re the same! Maybe I should go a bit easy given how much I actually get done? Maybe you should cut yourself some slack too?

I do have an idea about how I’m going to procrastinate less in 2023 though, and I thought I’d share it.

Thanks for reading Dancing Monkeys! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

The first rule is not to use a ToDo list, and I’ve talked about this before. I use one for processing, as an inbox, but not as a “what I’m going to get done today” box. I’ll use it for gathering stuff to process. To process the list, I’ll put the task in my calendar.

What if the task is big and won’t easily fit into a day? That doesn’t work so well. What if it comes with a deadline? Like the talk I’m giving next week at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge next week?

I know prep for a talk takes multiple sessions. So the way I’ll be handling this is adding an all day entry that gives a countdown for every week ahead I need to prep. I nearly always live in a fortnight view of my calendar, so it will always be prominent.

That prominence will prompt me to write a timed calendar entry at a suitable point, as many times as it takes to get things done.

It’s nice to be back, and you might have noticed I’ve switched back to Substack because Twitter is shutting down Revue.

If you fancy seeing me talk about the old days at the Centre for Computing History next week, feel free to drop by!

Thanks for reading Dancing Monkeys! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

3
2
Share
2 Comments
Seffyroff
Feb 7Liked by Shahid Kamal Ahmad

Very resonant for me, thanks for the entertaining read.

'next week' is repeated towards the end of paragraph 4.

Expand full comment
Reply
Antonio López
May 6

Choose a task, copy to memory from the inbox you described, choose an AI chatbot, paste the task to the bot prompt, ask the bot for three next actions lasting each chunks of 2 to 5 minutes each, do the job, adjust as needed, rinse and repeat until done. Easier said than done.

Expand full comment
Reply
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Shahid Kamal Ahmad
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing