Progress or Procrastination?

Why staying busy often feels productive—but rarely moves your goals forward.

Talking to people about their progress is a little bit of a tricky situation for me. Not because it is a sensitive topic, but because I find folks think they are getting a lot done when they are, in fact, running in a hamster wheel. A fine example of this shows up with writers.

How much progress have you made on your book?

“Oh, well, I made a mood board.”

How much progress have you made on your book?

“I spent two hours color coding my research for the book.”

How much progress have you made on your book?

“I watched a movie to get inspired for a scene.”

Are these things bad? No. Inspiration, preparation, and research all have their place in the creative process. The problem is that none of those things are actually writing the book. The pages are still empty. The chapter still isn’t written. The story hasn’t moved forward.

This is the trap that we fall into all the time.

I’m using examples from writing because that’s the world I live in, but the same pattern shows up everywhere. I see it in workplaces where people spend entire days in meetings that produce no decisions. I see it when teams reorganize documents, color code spreadsheets, and redesign presentation slides while the actual project quietly sits unfinished. On the surface everyone appears extremely busy. Calendars are full. Conversations are happening. Work is being discussed.

But the outcome—the thing that actually matters—has not moved forward.

I first became aware of this after finishing my master’s degree. Once I stepped out of the academic environment and began talking to people about their projects and careers, I noticed something interesting. Many of the people I spoke with were working constantly. They were tired. They were stressed. They talked about their goals often and with enthusiasm.

Yet months or even years later, those goals were still sitting in the same place.

They had been working hard, but they had not actually been moving forward.

That observation stuck with me, and it leads into something I want to try today. This is an interactive blog post, so I’d like to ask you a question.

What is something you have been trying to get done?

Maybe it’s writing a book. Maybe it’s finishing a degree, starting a business, improving your health, or completing a creative project that has been sitting half-finished for longer than you’d like to admit.

Now imagine you only had ten minutes to move that goal forward. Not an entire afternoon. Not a perfect stretch of uninterrupted focus. Just ten minutes.

What would you do?

Maybe you would write a paragraph. Maybe you would send an email that advances a conversation. Maybe you would sketch out the outline for the next scene in your project. Maybe you would research one specific problem you’ve been avoiding.

Now comes the harder question.

Why haven’t you done it?

When I ask people this question, the answers tend to follow a familiar pattern. The most common explanations involve children, work schedules, and the general chaos of modern life. People talk about how their days are packed with responsibilities, how their jobs consume most of their energy, or how they spend hours sitting in meetings that leave little room for anything else.

And to be fair, many of these challenges are real. Life is busy. Responsibilities exist. There are seasons where the demands of work or family genuinely take priority.

But there is also a hard truth that sits quietly underneath all of those explanations.

If you really want to do something—and I mean really want to—you will create the urgency to make it happen.

Consider something simple. I love food, and I love to eat it. Do I make sure that I eat at some point during the day? Yes. Is my schedule busy with meetings, work, and everything else that fills a normal day? Also yes. But somehow, despite the chaos, I still find time to eat.

“Carrow,” I can practically hear you saying, “that’s something your body needs to stay alive. Of course you make time for that.”

Fair enough. Let’s switch the example.

I really want to write a novel. Now, I may not have the luxury of sitting down for three uninterrupted hours every day. Life rarely allows that kind of perfect creative schedule. But I can absolutely write 250 words, which is roughly one page.

One page a day may not feel dramatic, but over time it becomes powerful. If someone writes 250 words every day for a year, they will produce more than 90,000 words. That is a full novel.

The progress might be slow, but it is still progress. And that is the key difference between moving forward and simply staying busy.

Why We Confuse Activity With Progress

Psychologists who study procrastination have discovered something interesting about how people avoid difficult tasks. According to Dr. Tim Pychyl, a researcher who has spent decades studying procrastination, the behavior is not primarily about time management. Instead, it is often about emotional management. Tasks that trigger discomfort—such as uncertainty, fear of failure, or the possibility of criticism—are more likely to be avoided.

When people feel that discomfort, they often substitute the difficult task with something easier that still feels productive.

Instead of writing the chapter, they organize their research.

Instead of launching the project, they redesign the logo.

Instead of exercising, they spend time researching the “perfect” workout plan.

These activities are not useless. The problem arises when they replace the work that actually produces results. Productivity experts sometimes refer to this as “pseudo-work,” which looks and feels like effort but does not generate meaningful output.

Author Cal Newport describes a similar idea in his book Deep Work, where he explains the difference between shallow activity and focused effort. Shallow work creates motion, but deep work creates progress.

Breaking the Cycle of Busy Without Progress

If you find yourself stuck in the hamster wheel of staying busy without moving forward, there are a few simple strategies that can help shift your momentum.

One of the most effective is what some productivity researchers call the Ten Minute Rule. Instead of asking whether you have enough time to complete an entire task, ask whether you can spend ten minutes moving the goal forward. Ten minutes is short enough that it lowers resistance, yet long enough to create a meaningful start.

Another useful strategy is defining the smallest actionable step. Large goals often feel overwhelming because they are vague. “Write a book” is a massive objective, but “write 250 words” is a clear action. Breaking goals into small, concrete tasks makes them easier to begin.

Tracking progress can also create motivation. Humans are wired to respond to visible progress, which is why even simple trackers can be powerful. Seeing a chain of completed days builds momentum and encourages consistency.

Finally, it helps to place limits on preparation. Research, planning, and inspiration should support your work rather than replace it. If you find yourself spending hours preparing instead of executing, it may be time to ask whether the preparation is genuinely necessary or simply a comfortable form of procrastination.

A Question to Leave You With

At the end of the day, the difference between progress and procrastination is not how busy we appear. It is whether our actions move the goal forward.

So I want to leave you with the same question we started with.

What is something you have been trying to get done?

And if you only had ten minutes today, what could you do to move it forward?