Art of Simplicity and 4 Ways to Fight Procrastineering

There’s value in having fun and overengineering stuff... These examples are oversimplified or may even seem charming, but in real life, procrastinating is robbing us of valuable time and progress.

I’m working on a segment on lean and agility for Build Your Way, so I was reminded of one of my favorite principles behind Agile manifesto:

Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential.

Many times, there’s a mixup between doing a lot of work, and achieving a lot. This is why this principle is so important. Counter-intuitively, we should focus on doing less, maximizing the work not done… But achieving the most value possible. Outcome over output.

When we fall victim to focusing on output instead of outcome, with a procrastination and overengineering twist, it’s called “procrastineering”. The term refers to unnecessarily delaying or avoiding important tasks or decisions by overoptimizing something that may be related or unrelated, but is unnecessary and brings little value.

For instance, I should clean my room and tidy up my apartment, but instead of actually doing the work, I may start working on elaborate and overcomplex systems of arranging stuff in my drawers. If I need to study, I may decide I need a unique new notebook, with a special new pen that I really need to go out and buy right now. In a literal engineering example, I could decide to work on a script that will optimize how and when I clean the apartment. Or when I should simply do something once or twice per month, I may decide to spend hours and hours to automate it – ending up using much more time and gaining no significant time saving or results worth mentioning.

Of course, there’s value in having fun, learning and practicing scripting, and so on. These examples are oversimplified or may even seem charming, but in real life, procrastinating is robbing us of valuable time and progress.

By recognizing the patterns and triggers of procrastineering, we can take the first step towards overcoming it. The second step is embracing the art of simplicity.

The art of simplicity is about distilling complex problems into their essential components and focusing on simple solutions that will deliver the most value. Maximizing the work not done. Minimizing wasted time and effort. Maximizing the value.

Here are four practical strategies that can be helpful to overcome procrastineering:

1. Setting clear goals

Defining specific, achievable goals that are further broken down into manageable tasks can create a sense of purpose and direction, while finishing task after task is a positive reinforcement loop and motivation for taking action. Well-defined goals and tasks are also easier to prioritize.

2. Prioritization and maximizing the work not done

Identifying the most important tasks and prioritizing them is an effective antidote to procrastineering, and focusing on value and outcomes over output is a way to be smart and effective, avoiding doing everything and anything for the sake of doing it. In product management, doing everything is a so-called feature factory anti-pattern as described in the book Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri, and it translates well to our personal lives: prioritize what and how, try to achieve the most value with less work – treat your ‘factory’ as a valuable resource, rather than a platform for overproducing stuff, whether you’re procrastineering or building for the sake of building. Your resources, time and energy, are valuable and limited, so use them wisely.

3. Timeboxing

Allocate a specific time period for a certain task and commit to completing it within that given timeframe. This practice promotes a sense of focus and urgency, so it’s a good antidote to procrastineering. I must admit timeboxing is something I use a lot in work life, but not that much or that often in private life, which is also OK. You should experiment and find what works for you.

4. Embracing minimalism

Minimalist mindset is a whole life philosophy on its own, but even without jumping in fully, it can be beneficial for you – in terms of simplicity and overall well-being alike. Remember that not only physical possessions can be clutter – evaluate your possessions, but evaluate commitments, obligations, items in the ‘to do’ list, digital messages, notifications etc. In terms of fighting against procrastineering, evaluate your backlog and make sure you focus on the goals you’ve set and prioritized versus ‘clutter’.