I really miss Google Inbox, for the tasks feature (that was never brought over to GMail as promised when it was discontinued). It had a great implementation of a postponing feature. I liked having tasks as inbox items just like emails, as emails usually also represent tasks, so having them in the same place was perfect. I'm likely to ignore any other task app, but I always check my email, so I'd always see the postponed tasks when they came back around.
My first teaching job was at a prestigious boys’ boarding school. A colleague who had the next desk in the staff room was also head of the first-formers’ boarding house, which meant he received an awful lot of emails from anxious parents about their not-quite-so-anxious sons. He left all these emails unread for a fortnight, because after this time the issues (or non-issues) had usually resolved themselves.
This is something I've thought about a lot, and while I like the framing in the article, it's missing a few key dimensions.
Optionality: In addition to "letting things resolve themselves", one benefit you can sometimes get by deferring a decision (esp a "one-way door" decision) is optionality (of learning information that might result in a better decision).
Waffling: On the other hand, if you are a manager or decision-maker on whom others depend, one of the worst things you can do is waffle on a key decision (ie, be indecisive). Andy Grove has a paragraph on this in High Output Management as one of the highest negative leverage things a manager can do to their team, and in fact, often a wrong (but correctible) decision is far better than no decision.
Good managers instinctively know how to navigate these tradeoffs.
You can defer the decision without waffling on the communication. Saying "we'll decide this later" (ideally with some reasons / parameters), is decisive - and sometimes gets pushback. Going silent in order to avoid dissent is bad form.
Not to say this "technique" isn't useful, but imo it should be super limited. I'll put off a reply when a) it's a non-urgent issue, where b) resources (documentation, or other local users' experience) exist, c) this user will be motivated to find them (by the nature of the issue, or because I know they are the sort of person who does that), and d) independent problem-solving will fulfill a teaching function. Even then, I will hit "Snooze" on the email and follow up a day or two later: if they haven't solved it I'll point them to a resource; if they have I'll praise them for figuring it out for themselves. People like both outcomes.
I notice that many of the historical examples are a result of latency in communication, like people asking for things that had already been done. We don't often face that constraint.
increase productivity in invading countries and killing their inhabitants? is there any Attila Method or Pinochet Hack i could complement the Napoleon Technique with?
“Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's a day you've had everything to do and you've done it.”
Margaret Thatcher
(To which a clever friend of mine retorted: Because you know you can do nothing the next day)
This is ketamine for procrastinators. Use at your own risk, YMMV.
We postpone not by choice, but by indecisiveness. Not just the 'things that will solve themselves', but also the things that will loom bigger and bigger over us until the built up stress breaks the veil.
It works, even very well as long as you also have the right skill combinations to deliver very fast eventually, but the cost is stress and in the longer term burnout and depression.
On the one hand I agree, but on the other hand I think it can be useful to examine both sides of ones vices. For instance, by studying delay as a legitimate technique you may come to realize that you have been subconsciously doing this. Just poorly and in the wrong situations. And you can ask yourself when you feel the urge to procrastrinate "is this the right time to delay? are there important things I should wait for before doing this?". And if there is then you can procrastrinate with good conscience and if there isn't then you have an additional argument for doing it now.
Going out on a limb with my speculation, I think it could even remove psychological fuel from the fire. By more clearly knowing when the behavior is and isn't appropriate, it will mean that when it seems inappropriate it will also be inappropriate, so performing the behavior when it seems inappropriate wil not be successful or rewarded or strengthened.
It has happened to me many times whenever I’m struggling with a solution, the next morning with little effort the problem becomes really easy.. it has happened countless number of times
It can be combined with rules as a pre-condition. For example: I have a CC box where mail is moved to where I am in CC. As I am mentioned in CC, I do not expect immediate action is required, and I will postpone the activity of reading or other action for that mail and 999 out of 1000 times it will resolve itself.
Now this is a very easy and clear example of a rule, but there are many like this to manage the workload to manageable levels. It allows me to work part-time for multiple customers, while often being more productive then full time employees.
I know a manager who was master of this technique - he did not read any email, nor do anything.
Would not make a single decision.
All his projects failed and those around hated him, there was a lot of joy after he was fired. This lack of decisions costed the company a ton of money.
This guife is maybe made for the rare few who end up with a clean inbox every day.
I asked for a help to my manager for some point in my job. He didn't respond to me for almost 4 hours than I figured out how to resolve the issue by my own. I noticed that when I read this article. He used this technique it actually worked in my case!
I use this technique in Slack by setting a reminder on a message so I can follow up later.
Sometimes I even push it to the next day or week by setting a reminder for 09:00. The only downside is that Slack doesn’t seem to have considered this workflow. Instead of giving me a single notification that several messages are ready for follow‑up, I get multiple push notifications on my phone. It’s a bit irritating, but it’s still the best option for now.
The technique can be interpreted in different ways. One thing that definitely helps is when there’s a strong hype cycle, like with AI, where you’re tempted to build the next “super framework” only to realize that another team may develop it faster and better than you ever could.
I have a friend who worked at an AI company before the current boom, and he once told me something along the lines of: we built several things over the past few years that could now be replaced by the new frameworks that keep appearing.
Napoleon ultimately was a master in Getting Things un-Done.
* Many layers to this joke. Think about his imprisonment and escape. To keep it thoughtful: The impact of the Code Napoléon is massive. With a tad bit less expansionism and a tad bit more realism and economic development large parts of the world would be "more French" now.
I hadn't realized there was a name for this! (i thought it's just procrastinating)
This what I do 90+% of the time, I work with my ADHD and put off doing as much as I can until the last minute. Then do weeks worth of work in hours.
To note:
If you're thinking of doing this, be careful, it can be extremely stressful
Only do it on stuff you're good at or understand the implications if it goes wrong, because this method doesn't allow much time to change your mistakes.
If its something new i will not do this (or i'll break it down in chunks)
The Napoleon approach is intentional, borne out of belief that a lot of communication is actually meaningless waffle produced by people whose first instict, when faced with an issue, is to talk about it with someone, rather than putting some thought into it; and a lot of it is just people being impatient.
Your thing is just procrastination. Although it can result in similar behaviour, in practice, it's a different thing.
This is something I learned from one of my (frankly fairly effective and powerful) parents. My wife, who is super conscientious just thinks its procrastinating, or worse, doing nothing until she does something. From experience in my own family acting like this can seem very selfish because usually if someone brings a problem to your attention they want you to show you are also concerned by acting and solving. Doing nothing can look bad.
But it can be smart! It's not just that problems solve themselves, it's also that the best course of action becomes clear with time. The optics of inaction can be terrible, which is why junior people managing upward nearly always start trying to tackle a problem immediately. For senior people, you need to acknowledge you are aware of a problem and will do something. I think this is one of the reasons managers implement process that seems kind of useless. Like meetings to discuss a decision without making the decision. To participants it can be frustrating but it is a way for the person in charge to show they know a problem exists that also lets them put off doing anything.
> you could decide to wait a day before replying to emails that ask for your advice on non-urgent issues, if you believe that by then the people who send the emails will likely figure out how to resolve those issues.
... and if you don't care what those people think of you.
This works great when you're on the receiving end of e-mails/ messages.
However it is a pain to deal with when you are on the sending side and your issue is urgent.
70 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 79.9 ms ] threadOptionality: In addition to "letting things resolve themselves", one benefit you can sometimes get by deferring a decision (esp a "one-way door" decision) is optionality (of learning information that might result in a better decision).
Waffling: On the other hand, if you are a manager or decision-maker on whom others depend, one of the worst things you can do is waffle on a key decision (ie, be indecisive). Andy Grove has a paragraph on this in High Output Management as one of the highest negative leverage things a manager can do to their team, and in fact, often a wrong (but correctible) decision is far better than no decision.
Good managers instinctively know how to navigate these tradeoffs.
Not to say this "technique" isn't useful, but imo it should be super limited. I'll put off a reply when a) it's a non-urgent issue, where b) resources (documentation, or other local users' experience) exist, c) this user will be motivated to find them (by the nature of the issue, or because I know they are the sort of person who does that), and d) independent problem-solving will fulfill a teaching function. Even then, I will hit "Snooze" on the email and follow up a day or two later: if they haven't solved it I'll point them to a resource; if they have I'll praise them for figuring it out for themselves. People like both outcomes.
I notice that many of the historical examples are a result of latency in communication, like people asking for things that had already been done. We don't often face that constraint.
Margaret Thatcher
(To which a clever friend of mine retorted: Because you know you can do nothing the next day)
We postpone not by choice, but by indecisiveness. Not just the 'things that will solve themselves', but also the things that will loom bigger and bigger over us until the built up stress breaks the veil.
It works, even very well as long as you also have the right skill combinations to deliver very fast eventually, but the cost is stress and in the longer term burnout and depression.
Going out on a limb with my speculation, I think it could even remove psychological fuel from the fire. By more clearly knowing when the behavior is and isn't appropriate, it will mean that when it seems inappropriate it will also be inappropriate, so performing the behavior when it seems inappropriate wil not be successful or rewarded or strengthened.
Would not make a single decision.
All his projects failed and those around hated him, there was a lot of joy after he was fired. This lack of decisions costed the company a ton of money.
This guife is maybe made for the rare few who end up with a clean inbox every day.
I forget the source of that, but it makes me chuckle.
Sometimes I even push it to the next day or week by setting a reminder for 09:00. The only downside is that Slack doesn’t seem to have considered this workflow. Instead of giving me a single notification that several messages are ready for follow‑up, I get multiple push notifications on my phone. It’s a bit irritating, but it’s still the best option for now.
I have a friend who worked at an AI company before the current boom, and he once told me something along the lines of: we built several things over the past few years that could now be replaced by the new frameworks that keep appearing.
Everything will suddenly become "URGENT" then.
* Many layers to this joke. Think about his imprisonment and escape. To keep it thoughtful: The impact of the Code Napoléon is massive. With a tad bit less expansionism and a tad bit more realism and economic development large parts of the world would be "more French" now.
This what I do 90+% of the time, I work with my ADHD and put off doing as much as I can until the last minute. Then do weeks worth of work in hours.
To note: If you're thinking of doing this, be careful, it can be extremely stressful
Only do it on stuff you're good at or understand the implications if it goes wrong, because this method doesn't allow much time to change your mistakes.
If its something new i will not do this (or i'll break it down in chunks)
The Napoleon approach is intentional, borne out of belief that a lot of communication is actually meaningless waffle produced by people whose first instict, when faced with an issue, is to talk about it with someone, rather than putting some thought into it; and a lot of it is just people being impatient.
Your thing is just procrastination. Although it can result in similar behaviour, in practice, it's a different thing.
But it can be smart! It's not just that problems solve themselves, it's also that the best course of action becomes clear with time. The optics of inaction can be terrible, which is why junior people managing upward nearly always start trying to tackle a problem immediately. For senior people, you need to acknowledge you are aware of a problem and will do something. I think this is one of the reasons managers implement process that seems kind of useless. Like meetings to discuss a decision without making the decision. To participants it can be frustrating but it is a way for the person in charge to show they know a problem exists that also lets them put off doing anything.
... and if you don't care what those people think of you.
Its something I deploy to low-stakes instant messaging communications. So you might get a:
'Hey quick one can you help with <request>'.
I can see the request but defer acknowledgement.
If its low-stakes then I sometimes leave it for 15 minutes and then acknowledge it up and its amazing how many times I do that I get a:
'Ahh no prob, sorted it out'