Stop Procrastinating

Q: “Am I Tricking Myself into Thinking Busy = Productive?”

Use this checklist to ensure you’re being productive — and not engaging in the busy work associated with procrastivity.

By J. Russell Ramsay, Ph.D. Verified Updated on October 3, 2024
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Q: “How do I know if I’m engaging in ‘procrastivity’ by keeping myself busy with unimportant tasks instead of making progress on harder, more important ones? How can I hold myself accountable over how I use my time?”

Procrastivity happens when you avoid a high-priority task by engaging in a lower-priority, less time-urgent activity. It can be tricky to tell if you’re in this state because the less-critical task you’ve escaped to (perhaps unwittingly) is still beneficial. Regardless, procrastivity is most often self-defeating and often hard to cease. Here, learn how to check in with yourself to ensure that you’re focusing on what’s most important.

1. Is the task on your to-do list?

It’s a straightforward question that will force you to be honest about how you use your time. It also underscores the importance of having a prioritized to-do list and an implementation plan for your tasks.

[Get This Free Download: The Eisenhower Matrix to Learn Prioritization]

Take the task of tidying your workspace. If this is not on today’s to-do list, and yet you’ve found yourself doing just that in lieu of other tasks, then it’s a clear-cut case of procrastination. But what if tidying your desk is on your list? If there is anything else on your list that needs more immediate attention and carries significant consequences if delayed or unfinished — like that major project due tomorrow — then you know that choosing to tidy is a form of procrastivity.

A prioritized list is not enough; you need an implementation plan that specifies not just what tasks you’ll do, but when and where. You can plan, for example, to put the finishing touches on your project at 2 pm. If you’re doing anything else at that time, then you’re procrastinating.

2. Are you rationalizing?

Procrastivity distorts your thoughts and tricks you into believing that you’re being productive. If you have any of the following distorted positive thoughts 1 while engaging in a task, then you know it’s procrastivity talking:

  • “I’ll just do this one thing first.”
  • “I do better waiting until the last minute to start an important task.”
  • “I can’t stop this task right now, might as well continue with it.”
  • “Though this task usually sucks me in, I’ll just do it for a minute.”
  • “I have plenty of time — I’ll just do one more thing before I jump to the other important task.”
  • “Being impulsive is just part of who I am.”
  • “I know I’m supposed to be doing something else, but I want to do this now.”

[Read: The Everyday Rationales That Let Procrastination In]

Practice checking in with your thoughts as you perform tasks. The more you do this, the more likely you’ll catch yourself when you do engage in procrastivity and get back on track.

Busy vs Productive: Next Steps to Combat Procrastivity

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Unraveling ADHD Procrastivity: How to Outsmart Procrastination and Improve Productivity” [Video Replay & Podcast #501] with J. Russell Ramsay, Ph.D., which was broadcast on April 18, 2024.

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1 Knouse, L. E., Mitchell, J. T., Kimbrel, N. A., & Anastopoulos, A. D. (2019). Development and evaluation of the ADHD Cognitions Scale for adults. Journal of Attention Disorders, 23(10), 1090–1100. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054717707580