Productive Procrastination: When Good Work Keeps You From Doing the Right Work

This week I had one of those moments that made me laugh out loud.

An author I work with sent me an email. She had been inspired to begin reconnecting with five people from her network. (This is a practice we’ve been discussing for several weeks on OPEN Friday Coffee.)

Then came the sentence that caught my attention.

“I realized I have no idea what I should say because I don’t have a call to action yet.”

Fair enough.

Then she explained that she was going to create a new page on her website.

She had also joined an authors’ organization and attended a wonderful webinar about the current state of children’s publishing. She joined a critique group and was excited about meeting other nature and animal writers. She was gathering resources and learning a tremendous amount.

As I read the email, I found myself smiling.

Then I heard the little voice in my head say:

“Uh oh…”

Not because any of those things were wrong.

Because I recognized the pattern immediately.

I’ve done exactly the same thing.

I call it Productive Procrastination.

What is Productive Procrastination?

Productive procrastination happens when we fill our day with valuable, worthwhile activities that conveniently postpone the one action that would move our project forward. (ie: Revenue!)

We’re busy.

We’re learning.

We’re organizing.

We’re improving.

We’re preparing.

But somehow, we’re not doing the very thing that matters most.

Sound familiar?

I’ve been guilty of:

• Reorganizing my office instead of making phone calls.

• Creating another landing page instead of talking with people.

• Researching software instead of writing.

• Building systems before testing whether anyone actually needed them.

Every one of those activities had value.

None of them moved the project forward (or created revenue) as much as one meaningful conversation.

The Twist

As I continued reading her email, I noticed something fascinating.

She started with a simple question:

“What should I say to five people?”

By the end of the email, we had wandered through websites, calls to action, publishing organizations, critique groups, webinars, and children’s publishing.

We had drifted a long way from the original question.

Again…

None of those things were bad.

They just weren’t the next step.

The Conversation Comes First

One realization has become increasingly clear to me over the past several years.

The purpose of contacting five people is not to have the perfect sales pitch.

The purpose is to reconnect.

To ask how they’re doing.

To learn what they’re working on.

To discover where they may be stuck.

To celebrate what’s going well.

That’s it.

You don’t need a polished website to ask someone how they’re doing.

You don’t need a perfect call to action to reconnect with an old friend.

You don’t need another webinar before picking up the phone.

The conversation comes first.

Everything else grows naturally from there.

My Own Lesson

As I’ve been building a Master Contact Sheet containing nearly 3,000 relationships accumulated over decades, I’ve been reminded of something important.

My business has never really been about books.

Or podcasts.

Or websites.

It’s always been about people.

The books support the conversations.

The podcasts create conversations.

The website schedules the conversations.

But none of those things replace the conversation itself.

One Small Challenge

Before you redesign your website…

Before you join another course…

Before you attend another webinar…

Ask yourself one question:

What is the one meaningful action I’ve been postponing by doing other useful work?

Then go do that.

For me, it’s reaching out to five people.

Because relationships have a remarkable way of creating opportunities that no marketing funnel can predict.

Sometimes the next step isn’t another project.

Sometimes it’s simply saying,

“Hi. I was thinking about you today. How have you been?”