Let’s say you’re given a task that you know how to accomplish: fill two rectangles drawn on a piece of paper with a pen.

Of the two rectangles, the first (A) is larger than the second (B).

Which one do you start coloring first? Do you fill up an entire rectangle before moving to the other one or not?

Now, let’s introduce another factor: who gives you the task also indicates which rectangle is more important to be colored first.

Do you follow the direction or still proceed as you would if no priority was assigned? And does the area ratio of the two rectangles influence your decision?

Here is how I operate: if no priority is assigned, I start coloring B (the smaller one), finish that, then move onto A (the bigger one).

If priority is assigned to A, I still do B first, unless the areas of A and B are so similar that I can’t distinguish them. If priority is assigned to B and B is substantially smaller than A, then I do B first, if not I start B, then move to A, finish A and then come back to B.

Let me analyze that behavior: I tend to do smaller subtasks first, as to be comforted of being making progress. I perceive a strong cognitive pleasure in finishing tasks and a smaller task is going to yield that pleasure sooner and energize me for the bigger task and reduces the risk of avoid completing the task because boredom or external stimulation drives me away from the task.

But when the subtask ordering is imposed, my behavior changes: in a sort of irrational reaction to authority (mind you, even if I’m the one suggesting the ordering to myself at task design time!), my own subtask scheduling is influenced by the external suggestions. To me, the fact of raising the coloring priority on a particular rectangle acts similarly to having increased its area.Which is why, if B is scheduled first and substantially smaller than A, then I would still do B (because even with the cognitively augmented area, B is still smaller than A). But if, after the scheduling, B is perceived to be bigger than A, I would do A first.

I have also realized that the amount of pressure given to a particular task (up to you vs. suggestion vs. imposition) acts, in fact, as a proportional area amplifier: a subtask looks much more difficult to me when its scheduling is imposed and the area amplification is proportional to the intensity/lack-of-flexibility of the scheduling.

So, why is it that I perceive a subtask to be more difficult (or take more time/energy/effort) when its order of execution in relation to other subtasks is fixed? and note, not fixed by somebody that I don’t trust or whose authority I don’t recognize… this happens even if I’m the one creating the relations in the first place!

That is a mystery to me: I still have no idea why that is but after studying myself for years, it’s obvious that it’s exactly what’s happening.

Now, what I came to realize is also how that ‘imposition-based difficulty amplification’ leads, almost automatically, to be perceived as a tendency to procrastinate.

Basically, it’s a vicious cycle in which some simple task gets perceived much more difficult than what it really is because you have to do it, which means that it will be pushed down the schedule and other tasks will be done first, even if they were not so urgent and even if they are, as tasks, more complex.

Let’s ground the discussion with a few examples: you have to clean two rooms, one is smaller and cleaner but it’s very important that it gets done (because it’s where the guests will sleep and you have two hours before they arrive), the other requires much more work, it’s bigger and a total mess. I start with the bigger and messy one.. and in the process I cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen (that just required little to do) before attacking the guest room. I finished in time, but rushing and totally frustrated by my own schedule… achieving more than I even had to do.

Another example: you wake up in the morning and the night before you have given yourself a few programming tasks to start and finish for the day, sized so that you’re likely to finish them and feel good about committing and making progress. The first thing you do is reading email and blogs, reply to all of the emails that you need to reply to (if any), then clean your desktop and then start attacking the last one of the self-scheduled tasks.

This behavior is both incredibly frustrating (not only for my managers and my colleagues but for myself as well!) but it’s also surprisingly powerful: if one of the byproducts of such behavior is perceived as procrastination (and this is the bad one), another byproduct is an incredible attention to details and the ability to execute a ton of relatively complicated tasks at the same time effectively… basically because these are perceived as smaller, un-tasked or low-priority rectangles that can be colored faster and easier (even if it’s just a distortion of their not-being prioritized).

This priority-driven distortion is weird not only because it’s hard to isolate or understand where it comes from, but also because it’s hard to explain to others as it feels, from the outside, just a way to drag your feed to avoid doing what you don’t want to do. But this is very rarely the case for me as I’m lucky enough to be able to pick my own tasks at work.

The questions in my head, now that I have finally identified the source of my own scheduling behavior, are the following:

1. how common is for people to perceive a prioritized task as more effort-requiring than the same task un-prioritized?
2. since such a cognitive model yields to a perceived tendency to procrastinate, is this condition sufficient to explain it? and is it necessary?
3. is there anything that can be done (managing-wise and self-managing-wise) to help people that exhibit such behavior to be more productive and less frustrated about their own behavior? or are they doomed to execute efficiently and effectively everything but what they were tasked to do?
4. last but not least, can such behavior be changed?