Productive Procrastination: A Silent Killer
Whenever I open my YouTube feed I’m bombarded with videos like “How to break from your phone addiction” or “Change your life in X days”. I click on these videos and spend 10–15 minutes relearning how to do those things.
After the video, I will feel good about myself for watching something “productive”. Perhaps I’ll feel motivated to go do something. Tomorrow. Then I’ll click another video and the cycle repeats.
Next thing you know, you spent 2 hours just watching videos. Did you actually learn something new? Are you closer to your goal in some way?
Videos and guides on productivity (like this one too) have the effect of making you feel like you are doing something important. You’re learning, right? If you watch a lot of these kinds of videos you start to notice that they have the same advice.
I find myself watching these videos to procrastinate. I avoid the actual tasks at hand and fill them with things that give me the same amount of feel-good without the same effort.
A solution to productive procrastination
If you find yourself in the same situation, the key thing you are lacking is action. You have basically all of human knowledge at your fingertips. All you need to do is do something about it.
A book on gardening is useless unless you go out and make a garden.
A video on quitting your addiction is useless unless you take the steps to quit that addiction.
Content that teaches you something is not wrong. You shouldn’t avoid it. But it is only a part of the equation. The second part is action. Knowledge plus action equals progress.
So next time you find yourself consuming content that seeks to teach you something, take a moment afterward to write down what actions you can take from it. Don’t just skip to the next video. Do something about it.
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