Time-shrinkage practices include diversionary practices of surfing the Internet, playing computer games, text messaging, personal email, gabbing with others, creating intrigues, playing office politics, daydreaming, carrying on an office romance, making lengthy personal phone calls, or taking an hour to complete a two-minute business call. They include foot-dragging, playing it safe, sidestepping responsibilities, cover your tail tactics, finger pointing, unbendingly following regulations, sounding confident about what you don't know, and engaging in faffing procrastination.

Faffing procrastination is trying to look busy by engaging in low value activities or doing productive ones but not the most important. Saying that you are busy, busy, busy is a common faffing technique to cause others to do what you put off, or to get people off your back. As an unexpected consequence, faffing commonly sully relationships.

Fogging Reality

Executives, who believe that they eliminated work procrastination, have their heads in the sand. People procrastinate, period! Anyone at any time can find a way to subvert a time management control system designed to cause people to work harder or longer for the same amount of money.

If you are an executive you have authorities to reduce unsolicited phone calls. You can funnel contact requests through a "guard-dog" and discourage this form of communication. You can closely monitor people for work output. As long as you tightly control the work process, you may get out more productivity for the same pay.  You are also likely to get less creativity and voluntary cooperation. Except for those who like to work under a tight-control system, expect higher than the industrial average turnover among employees.

There are wiser ways that build on the human tendency to operate competently and productively. 

Effectiveness Training

If you count yourself among those with underutilized potential, why not use time you'd ordinarily spend procrastinating to get ahead while others procrastinate? Cutting back on procrastination diversions, for example, can add to your personal effectiveness and have a value-added benefit. You can reduce needless stress associated with procrastination,

Using time productively, that you'd normally spend procrastinating, does not take extra time! You can still pace your work. You can take planned time for creative thinking and to maintain positive work relationships. These relationships are especially important in getting things done when the chips are down.

If you are an independent proprietor, you have more flexibility in choosing what to emphasize. However, procrastination on marketing, organizing, and staying fiscally solvent sets the stage for you to join the majority of those who are out of business within their first five years of operation. However, a modest extra effort promotes accomplishments in these three critical areas and your operation may prove more durable than most.

What do you do to make a radical shift and use time you would normally lose procrastinating? (1) Challenge yourself to stay aware of the consequences of critical delays. You can help yourself avoid many common pitfalls in this way. (2) Take information from this "crash course blog series on procrastination" and inform yourself about what to do to get past procrastination barriers. (3) Learn to boost your personal effectiveness by strengthening your positive work attitude by taking initiative and meeting challenges.

If you find yourself procrastinating on boosting your personal productivity, here is a self-management WORKS approach:

When starting a new project, do the most challenging part that you can reasonably do first.
Order your activities to maximize your efficiency. The extra time you take in this front-loading activity adds velocity to your personal effectiveness plan.
Regulate your thoughts, emotions, and actions toward moving your projects forward.
Keep clear of needless distractions, such as procrastination diversions.
Stay with your strengths to advance your progress.

Use the following seven quick-tip guidelines to prevent work procrastination and to profit from the results you produce when you boost your productivity:

1. Take a bits and pieces approach and deal with procrastination a little at a time. If you start this bits and pieces program by eliminating needless diversionary activities, the odds are that you'll get farther faster.
2. Stop backtracking. This means keep up so that you don't have to back up.
3. Set aside time to look for productive opportunities. Is there a way to streamline a daily routine? What are your opportunities to change procedures, improve your work environment, or advance your knowledge?
4. Think critically about a target area. For example, learn to frame questions to get quality responses. Dig into the data and separate fiction from hypothesis from fact.
5. Delegate when you can. Few people can do everything alone. If you stall in this area, ask yourself, "What do I fear?" and the picture may soon clear.
6. Avoid over commitment. This is a trigger for procrastination or exhaustion.
7. March to a productive drumbeat. You'll either advance or you'll position yourself for advancement elsewhere.

The 18th century poet Edward Young suggested a reason for avoiding procrastination pitfalls:

                 Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
                 Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
                 Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
                 Procrastination is the thief of time;

Procrastination may be more aptly described as a thief of life opportunities. If so, what does it mean when you stealtime from yourself?

In End Procrastination Now (McGraw-Hill, 2010) I describe how to improve your productivity with less stress and strain. 

Dr.Bill Knaus