Clever Ways to Procrastinate during the Holiday Season

By Arfa Mirza. in Culture. Updated on July 15, 2022.

You know it’s the holiday season when you see brightly decorated markets, special sales at shops, and candles lit in every other window around you. However, there are also some personal indicators of the holiday season like; Christmas jingle stuck in your head, and a don’t-feel-like-doing-any-work sensation.

Indeed, this lovely holiday season is directly proportional to increased procrastination at work, i.e. the closer you get to the Christmas holidays, the more strong is your feeling to avoid any serious work.

What Causes HSP?

HSP, or Holiday Season Procrastination can develop due to a number of causes. For some, holiday season means planning for parties, shopping, travelling or hosting events etc. and thoughts like these cause them to lose focus in their daily office tasks.

In other cases, employees, from both higher and lower levels, often go on vacations in the weeks before Christmas holidays. So when so many people are out of the office, the workflow subsequently slows down, affecting your interest in work.

Then there are those who take the spirit of celebration and jubilation a little too seriously, consequently making them lose their momentum in work.

Some Clever Ways to Procrastinate

By writing this piece, I don’t want to encourage procrastination in any way (especially when productivity managers insist on avoiding it in order to achieve your golas). However, it’s a matter of common sense that if something is there and you just cannot help it, then better face it, head on!

In my views, procrastination does not necessarily mean counter-productiveness, and there are so many ways you can remain somewhat productive while being in the state of procrastination. So in the following I’m putting forward some simple, yet clever ways to procrastinate at work without actually loosing much at the productivity end.

1. Make Lists

You are buzzing with holiday excitement, but still have to come to office for a couple more weeks. In such a situation, it becomes very difficult to keep yourself motivated to work. However, one thing that’s better than ‘doing’ work is to ‘think’ about it.

You can do so by jotting down all the tasks that are on your plate, and sorting them into things that are on priority, and things that can be postponed to the time when you’ll come back from vacation. This way you can muster up the motivation to work on only the prioritized tasks in your list, and not all of them.

It’s not just my opinion. Research vouches for the idea that list making is the first baby-step towards achieving your goals. You can also use this time to list down your goals for the upcoming year, or even prepare a list of Christmas gifts. Well, it doesn’t matter what the list is about, it will always take you a step closer to productivity.

2. Clean up and organize

Want to look busy without doing much work? Try cleaning up your work space, organize files, folders and paperwork that is otherwise scattered over your work station all year long. It may look like you’re wasting time, but in reality by cleaning up your work space, you are doing yourself a big favor.

Also, it is not just your cubicle that needs to be cleaned, your computer’s desktop may also be as cluttered, in fact, it can even be your inundating email account. Clear your computer’s desktop of all the extra files and folders and get rid of unwanted bulky emails that take up the GBs in your account.

By the end of the day, you’ll not only get a cleaner work space, a computer with improved speed and more space in email account, but also a strong feeling of achievement to take home with.

2. Meetings

Those boring office meetings you always thought as a burden, can be a great blessing in disguise when you want to procrastinate your time away during the holiday season. Either arrange a meeting or take part in one, it will always be helpful in killing the time that otherwise runs at a snail’s pace.

On the other hand, meetings aren’t always useless. As a matter of fact, they may actually help you by giving a platform to share your situation with others, and see if they can relate or offer any useful solution. Also, meetings help streamline the tasks, improve coordination among colleagues and can revive your focus on work.

3. Lend a hand

If you think that your own assignments are making you lose focus at work, try offering your help to a friend or colleague in their tasks. You can help the creative department with some idea, or get into the finance section and sort some files out for them, or you can even check with the reception desk if you can take some calls for her.

It will not only help you make it through the pre-holiday boredom, but may also bring a good person out of you. After all, sharing and helping is the true essence of Christmas.

4. Run errands

Research shows that we tend to procrastinate on the tasks that we consider as boring, frustrating, or difficult. So if you feel that your daily office tasks are getting too boring for you, try replacing them with less boring ones. You can make use of this time to catch up with certain pending tasks like paying a visit to the office suppliers or replacing those dying cartridges in the office printer.

If the need be, you can even run some personal errands, for instance, fix an appointment with the dentist or shop for Christmas presents for your colleagues. However, remember to take them only as a way to refresh your mind and get back to work with stronger focus.

So, did you get the point?

Holiday season procrastination is a real thing, and a good many professionals suffer from it, even if they don’t want to admit it. But if this article just made you realize that you do feel averted from work during this time of the year, don’t sweat about getting it out of your system. You can do so much if you just go with the flow and be clever about it.

Also, don’t forget to tell us about your own experience. Happy Holidays!