We procrastinate when we feel overwhelmed – we have so many tasks, we just don’t know where to begin. We procrastinate when the task is complicated, boring or tedious (when was the last time you jumped at the chance to clean out your closets?).

Here’s a great piece from The New Yorker about procrastination – its origins as a term, why we do it and what we can learn. Good news: procrastination isn’t always a bad thing!

Even though procrastination may be in our genes, it’s highly unlikely our boss will take that excuse when the budget, report, project or presentation is late. Sometimes we just have to bite the bullet and get to work.

Writer Gretchen Rubin has seven tips for avoiding procrastination, including breaking tasks into manageable pieces, tackling something first thing in the morning and simply committing to getting X, Y and Z accomplished.

A few other ideas:

• If your to-do list looks overwhelming, pick the top three projects (maybe one large and two small) and focus on getting those done by the end of the day. Three tasks looks more reasonable than 15.
• Give yourself a carrot. Decide to spend three good hours working on a certain task and then take a break and give yourself a little reward – a latte, a short walk outside or lunch with a friend.
• Turn off the distractions. It’s so easy to check e-mail, read the news or update your Facebook status to avoid the task at hand. Turn off everything except just what you need for the project.

What are your best tips for avoiding procrastination?

Depending on your industry, productivity may be measured in truly objective standards, such as whether employees produced the assigned number of widgets at the end of the shift. For sales, it may be about achieving quarterly goals. Those in more creative industries certainly measure productivity in financial terms and whether new business is rolling in the door, but it’s also tough to measure the process that leads to good ideas – everything from group brainstorming to sitting outside for two hours thinking through a new idea.

Often increased productivity is achieved through small changes in how you approach your day.

• Spending the last 10 minutes of the day organizing your desk and preparing for the following day.
• Using the “one touch” rule for e-mail so it doesn’t backlog in your Inbox.
• Scheduling only critical meetings and then adhering to the meeting agenda and allotted time.

We found an interesting article in a recent issue of Inc. magazine about Charles Best, the CEO of DonorsChoose, a New York City nonprofit. Best calculated that he saves 2 seconds every time he uses a keystroke shortcut, for example Control + Enter to send an e-mail. The article estimates Best saves about 50 days worth of time over a 40-year career using just that keystroke.

It may take a little time upfront to set up shortcut keys, e-mail file systems or Twitter application, but those time-savers certainly add up in the long run – just ask Charles Best.

Whether you’re working widgets or writing ad copy, we want to know your best productivity tip.

Quite often there’s something about work that makes it hard to work. Our days are a series of interruptions and distractions: phone calls, e-mails, meetings, water cooler chat, questions from co-workers and did we mention meetings. It’s no surprise that after what seemed like a very busy day, our to-do list hasn’t lightened.

And, sometimes our distractions are of our own doing: checking Facebook pages, sending text messages to friends or taking 12 cell calls from the spouse or kids.

So, whether your lack of productivity is legitimate (all those meetings) or just wasting time (Facebook), it’s not going to help your job performance if you can’t get anything accomplished.

1. If you’re unhappy, bored or burned out with your job, figure out how to make a change. Is there an opening in another department? Can you talk with your boss about taking on additional or different responsibilities? Chances are your supervisor would welcome your initiative and you could get a real change of pace. If you’re feeling burned out, use some vacation time and just get away for a few days. Or attend a professional conference – those are often great for rejuvenating your interest in your career and giving you a fresh perspective.
2. Checking your friends’ Facebook status for 10 minutes while eating a sandwich at your desk may be OK, but spending an hour doing that while also texting and sending personal e-mails is not. If the temptation is too great, leave your cell phone in the car and instruct your family or your children’s school to call you at the office in case of an emergency (and “what’s for dinner?” probably isn’t an emergency).
3. If you’re lucky enough to have an office with a door, you can occasionally shut yourself away to get some work done without interruption. But if you have to work in a cubicle city, you know co-workers have no problem popping by your desk with questions or simply to chat about their weekend exploits. Try placing a ribbon across the entrance to your cubicle with a sign letting people know you’re hard at work and will be free after 3 p.m., for example.

We want to know, can you work at work? What keeps you from having a productive day? Share a comment, tip or insight.