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10 Smart Ways To Work Slower And Get Less Done

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Sometimes you want to make the best use of your time. Like when you go to a buffet and want salad, dinner, and dessert. Sure, you look a little greedy carrying three plates back to your table at the same time, but at least you won’t have to elbow your way back through the line to get your meal. Ammiright? It’s good to be focused and productive. Work smarter, right? But sometimes you just want to take as long as possible to accomplish anything substantial. Some jerks might call this “procrastination,” but I like to think of it as “alternative time management (ATM).” Below are some tips for people exactly like you. You might have to incorporate them gradually into your routine to get the full ATM effect, but don’t worry: any habit can be changed with enough persistence.

procrastination

10 Smart Ways To Work Slower And Get Less Done

1. Check email first thing. You definitely want to see what sales are online and which Kardashian is pregnant now. Might as well check Facebook at the same time…you know, so you don’t miss anything.

2. Don’t worry about sleep. You’ve got to get that work done sometime. It’s not like you can get eight hours of work done in your eight hour work day. That’s just crazy. When would you recheck that e-mail?

3. Grains and legumes make a complete protein, so  bean dip + corn chips = balanced meal.

4. Get out of your chair now and then. That Diet Coke isn’t going to get itself out of the fridge. Not too fast, though. You don’t want it to seem like exercise.

5. Do the easy stuff first. Save the most important task for last. Even better if it’s late in the afternoon, when you mostly want a nap.

6. Stay home! You can get anything delivered these days, so who needs to leave the house?

7. Breaks are for wimps. Except if someone sends you a link to a cat meme.  Or someone tags you on Instagram. You need to make sure that it’s a flattering picture.

8. Stay on task. If you’re writing a paper about maritime law, read as much as possible. Also, while you’re looking up the number of shipwrecks off the East Coast of the US, make sure and read a few articles on maritime salvage laws while you’re at it. And if you happen onto a story about pirates off the coast of Maine, dive in. Get it? Dive?

9. Don’t move on until things are perfect. You want to work as hard as you can to polish that first draft so that when you revise you will be discarding as many hours of work as possible.

10. Multitask! You can get a little of a lot of projects done instead of finishing just one. Who wants a clean kitchen floor when you could have a partially swept floor, one dusted shelf, two clean plates, the vacuum open to replace the bag, and a load of laundry in the hallway instead? At the end of the day your house will still be a wreck, but MAN will you have worked hard!

Good luck! Not that you’ll need it. These are pretty easy tips to follow. They’ve been keeping me inefficient for years!

 

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