There’s a whole new wave of tech companies whose big pitch is the relief they offer from the burdens of the modern white-collar workplace. SquareSpace, whose ads you’ve heard if you’ve ever downloaded a podcast, helps you promote your personal brand by making it easier to build a website. Slack, whose slogan is “be less busy,” promises to bring all your messaging and file-sharing systems together in one place. If you’re in the growing ranks of independent contractors, FreshBooks supposedly makes it harder for clients to ignore your bills.
There’s a whole new wave of tech companies whose big pitch is the relief they offer from the burdens of the modern white-collar workplace. SquareSpace, whose ads you’ve heard if you’ve ever downloaded a podcast, helps you promote your personal brand by making it easier to build a website. Slack, whose slogan is “be less busy,” promises to bring all your messaging and file-sharing systems together in one place. If you’re in the growing ranks of independent contractors, FreshBooks supposedly makes it harder for clients to ignore your bills.
The very existence of these firms shows how — in an economy where everyone’s multitasking, and a growing number of thankless duties are falling upon individuals who are ill equipped to handle them — even the most diligent workers can easily get sidetracked from their real business.
It’s easy to dismiss workplace procrastination as a moral weakness, even a form of psychological damage. If social media in late December was any indication, lots of Americans have guiltily resolved to stop putting things off in the new year.
But procrastination circa 2016 doesn’t just mean blowing off assignments to binge-watch “Making a Murderer.” Often, it means laying aside one pressing obligation for other little things that still need doing — like trying to get paid, or replying to the boss. Call them micro-procrastinations. They’re not your fault. Butover time, they add up.
“What’s expected of people now makes it impossible to get sustained, serious attention to any one thing,” says Barry Schwartz, a psychology professor at Swarthmore College.
Schwartz comes at the problem from two angles: He’s the author of “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less,” a seminal 2004 book about the paralysis that consumers suffer when confronted with too many decisions. He also wrote “Why We Work,” published this fall, about finding satisfaction on the job.
Instead of happiness, micro-procrastination mostly yields bad habits. If you’re an academic working on a research paper — or, purely hypothetically, a newspaper writer facing a regular deadline — a momentary mental block becomes an occasion to skim through your social media feeds. (Bonus tic: If you zone out while scrolling through tweets on your computer, just pull out your phone and check Twitter there, too.)
Ultimately, the battle against micro-procrastination won’t be won through individual effort. In most areas of public policy, we recognize that most people have limited financial resources. At some point, we’ll also have to acknowledge there’s only so much time and attention that those same people can devote to new tasks that are dropped in their laps. SquareSpace and Slack may have their charms, but technology can’t save us from ourselves.
© 2016 The New York Times Company