15 Ways to Procrastinate Productively

Think about your tasks in concrete, specific terms

If you’re the type of person who prefers to perform their job functions in a more abstract way—that is to say, you’d rather mull over a task than actually create a plan for solving it—then you might want to change your strategy.

One 2008 study published in Psychological Science found that students who approached a questionnaire concretely were more likely to get it done in a timely manner than those who thought about it abstractly. “Merely thinking about [a] task in more concrete, specific terms makes it feel like it should be completed sooner and thus [reduces] procrastination,” the study authors concluded.