Active Avoidance: Doing the Wrong Right Thing

Hey, welcome back to Standing on the Ledge.

Today’s topic: active avoidance. Procrastination. Call it what you will.

It’s the act of not doing the thing I know I should do, and doing something else instead. Sometimes that “something else” is still useful. It still needs to get done. But the real reason I’m doing it is simpler: it’s a way to dodge the higher-needs task because the higher-needs task has more friction, more discomfort, more overhead.

In other words: I’m not necessarily being lazy. I’m being avoidant.

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The driveway versus the house

Real-life example: cleaning or tidying the house versus clearing the snow from the driveway.

The driveway is the higher-needs task. It has consequences if I don’t do it. If I don’t clear it, I can’t get out for job interviews or appointments. The problem is: it also has a brutal “startup cost.”

• Dress properly.
• Clean off the car and tractor.
• Fuel the tractor.
• Boost it to start it.
• Then spend hours in the cold doing the job.

The house, by comparison, might take the same amount of time, but it has less mental overhead and less physical resistance. So my brain votes for the house… even though the driveway is the real priority.

This is what procrastination often looks like in the wild: task substitution. It’s “productive” in the moment, but it’s still avoidance.

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The psychology lens: procrastination isn’t just time management

One of the most useful reframes I’ve ever seen is this:

Procrastination is often mood management, not time management.¹

That hits because it’s true. I don’t avoid the driveway because I don’t understand it’s important. I avoid it because it feels heavy, cold, complicated, and annoying before I even start. So I do the thing that gives me faster relief and less resistance.

Steel’s meta-analysis found that procrastination reliably tracks things like task aversiveness, delay, self-efficacy, and impulsiveness—which is basically a fancy way of saying: if the task feels awful and the payoff feels far away, I’ll try to escape the feeling.²

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The coping lens: avoidance is a strategy (just not a great long-term one)

From a stress-and-coping view, coping is what we do to manage demands that feel like they exceed our resources.³

Avoidance coping can show up as disengaging, turning away, or escaping the stressor (or the feelings attached to it).⁴

That’s the key: this isn’t always “I don’t care.” Sometimes it’s “I care too much, and the startup cost feels bigger than my current capacity.”

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The sociology lens: time poverty and bandwidth

There’s also a structural angle here.

When you’re dealing with scarcity—money, time, stability—your brain gets pulled into “tunneling.” The urgent thing eats the bandwidth, and planning suffers.⁶

And when people feel chronically overloaded (what researchers often call time poverty), the sense of “too much to do / not enough time” becomes its own stressor and decision tax.⁷

So yes: some of this is personal psychology. But some of it is the reality of trying to rebuild while carrying too many simultaneous demands.

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Where I’m catching myself

This isn’t just “driveway vs house.” I do it in other forms too:

• Working on the blog instead of paperwork.
• “Spam posting days” instead of finances.
• Researching job hunting instead of actually job hunting.

All of these have value. But if I’m honest: I’m sometimes using them as an escape hatch from the task that has the highest payoff and the highest discomfort.

And here’s the part I have to own:

I have the tools. I have the knowledge. The failure is triage and application.

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The practical fix: reduce the startup cost

Most of my avoidance happens before I start. The “activation energy” is the wall.

So the fix is not “be tougher.” The fix is: make starting smaller.

Tool 1: The Overhead List (make the invisible visible)

Write the startup steps like a checklist (exactly like I did above). Then pick the first step that can be done in 5 minutes.

• Put boots + coat by the door.
• Find the booster pack.
• Locate fuel can.
• Clear the driver-side door only.

Not heroic. Just a “wedge.”

Tool 2: If–Then planning (kickstart rules)

Implementation intentions are simple: an if–then plan that hands control to the environment.

If it is 10:00 a.m., then I put on boots and clear one path to the tractor. That’s it.⁵

The goal is not to finish the driveway in one emotional outburst. The goal is to start without negotiating with myself for an hour.

Tool 3: Behavioral activation logic (action first, feelings later)

This is where I pull from behavioral activation: mood follows action more often than we’d like to admit. A small, structured action can break the avoidance loop.⁸

So the rule is:

• 10 minutes counts.
• One small fire counts.
• Progress beats perfect.

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A note about writing versus dictation

I noticed something else today. I chose to write this out instead of dictating it in real time.

Upside: I stayed focused on one task.

Downside: I lost about five threads of thought that popped into my head while I was writing. For idea generation, that can feel like a loss. But for coherence and completion? It’s a win.

So here’s the compromise I’m going to use going forward:

• Write the main piece.
• Keep a “scratchpad” open for the five threads.
• Do not let “capturing threads” become another form of avoidance.

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Why this makes me think about an app

This is also why I keep circling the idea of building an app for the Tools & Protocols.

Because what I need in the moment of avoidance isn’t more philosophy. It’s a prompt that converts dread into a next step:

• What phase am I in?
• What’s the highest-needs task?
• What’s the smallest start?
• What’s the if–then rule?

I’m not sure I’m there yet. But I’m noticing the need clearly.

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Closing

Active avoidance is sneaky because it can look productive. The house gets cleaner. The blog gets another post. Something gets done.

But if the driveway stays buried, the mission fails.

So the real triage question is simple:

Am I doing a task because it’s needed… or because it’s easier than the task I’m avoiding?

Godspeed.

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Footnotes

1. F. Sirois & T. Pychyl, “Procrastination and the Priority of Short-Term Mood Regulation” (2013), Social and Personality Psychology Compass. Source (PDF). ↩
2. P. Steel, “The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure” (2007), Psychological Bulletin. PubMed. ↩
3. S. Folkman & R. Lazarus, coping definition quoted in “Dynamics of a Stressful Encounter: Cognitive Appraisal, Coping, and Encounter Outcomes” (1986). Source (PDF). ↩
4. M. T. Allen et al., discussion of avoidance/approach coping (2021), Frontiers in Psychology (PMC full text). Source. ↩
5. P. M. Gollwitzer, “Implementation Intentions” (1999) (PDF). Source. ↩
6. A. Mani et al., “Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function” (2013), Science. Source. ↩
7. L. M. Giurge & A. S. Whillans, “Why time poverty matters…” (Perspective; PDF). Source. ↩
8. University of Michigan Medicine, “Behavioral Activation for Depression” (handout PDF). Source. ↩