The 8 Stages of Procrastinating at Work

Stage 1: Pre-Procrastination

The worst happens: Your boss gives you that one task you hate. And an EOD deadline.

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Your immediate reaction is complete disbelief.

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Then frustration.

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But since you're at the office, you keep a cool face on.

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Stage 2: Denial

You try to get the task assigned to someone else.

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But no one budges.

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So you try to start the task—but get nowhere fast.

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So this leaves you with one option: Put off this task as long as possible.

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Stage 3: "Productive" Procrastination

First, you procrastinate by doing other assigned work.

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Then, you clean out your work email inbox.

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And your personal email inbox.

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And your junk email inbox.

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Then, you just start typing random stuff to looking busy.

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Stage 4: Social Media Procrastination

You open up Facebook to stalk people from high school.

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My goodness, their lives look cooler than yours.

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Of course, you're doing all of this while trying to avoid your boss.

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Soon, you start tweeting like a crazy person.

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You have to keep your enthralled followers up-to-date, right?

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Stage 5: Office Procrastination

You start to feel bored, so you clean your office space.

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Before you know it, you find yourself in the kitchen snacking on anything you can get your hands on.

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Stage 6: Procrastinating Procrastination

Uh oh, you're running out of things to do.

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Yeah, procrastinating is getting boring.

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Stage 7: Realization of Procrastination

Suddenly you look at the clock.

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Only 30 minutes to get this task done?!

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You race through it, never looking up.

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And you finish with two minutes to spare.

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Stage 8: Post-Procrastination

Huh, that wasn't so bad after all.

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Until your boss asks you to do that task again tomorrow.

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How about...

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Photo of clock courtesy of Shutterstock.