On procrastination and how to think about the substitute activities that we do instead of dong work:
When you procrastinate, you’re probably not procrastinating because of the pain of working, because on a moment-to-moment basis, being in the middle of doing the work is usually less painful than being in the middle of procrastinating.
That is pretty useful to remember. And another tidbit:
I’m starting to think that […] you do not regain mental energy from [procrastination. Success and happinesscause you to regain willpower; what you need to heal your mind from any damage sustained by working is not inactivity, but reliably solvable problems which reliably deliver experienced jolts of positive reinforcement.
I think this is a pretty useful insight - when compelled to procrastinate, what you choose to do can greatly affect whether you manage to get actual work done later.
In October of last year, there was a great piece in the New Yorker about procrastination that convinced me to change my working habits immediately.
I took on exactly this philosophy that procrastination is a personal signal of unhappiness. Neal Stephenson once wrote, "Boredom is a mask that frustration wears". The usual precursor to procrastination was boredom, which told me two things; I was frustrated about something that was making me unhappy, which in turn was making me avoid what I was frustrated about.
I began looking for segues that would lead me back to productivity. If I had to read a long policy paper and I was procrastinating, I would read a novel instead, which would gear the reading side of my brain and get the right word-scanning juices flowing to ease into governmental policy.
If I had to analyze a report on work RVU productivity variations for five specialty practices, I would take a break from the computer, walk, and observe in detail my surroundings, exercising my analytical brain to see things I normally wouldn't see. When I got back to the task at hand, it'd be a natural transition to sit in front of the computer for a few hours comparing numbers.
As noted above, having self-awareness about how you feel when you're in the middle of something produces direct results in your behavior. I'd rather be in the middle of a good book or walk than surfing the web. Scheduled surf time is far more rewarding.