Work Daze: Racing ahead in your career? Better learn to drag your feet

Bob Goldman 

What do you do when a new assignment comes around? 

If you immediately raise your hand, you’re making a big mistake. What you should do is duck your head. And if that new assignment does land in your lap, you certainly shouldn’t put your nose to the grindstone and start working. What you should do is hold your nose, and start dragging your feet.

Alas, in today’s dog-eat-dog, AI-eat-AI business world, being a procrastinator gets a bad rap. This is not justified. The less work you do, the fewer career-ending blunders you make. Plus, with a project you haven’t finished, you’re far less likely to be included in the next round of layoffs. How can you be fired? You have work to do.

Duke University professor Dorie Clark doesn’t agree. In her recent Harvard Business Review article, “Five Ways to Actually Move Forward on That Task You’ve Been Avoiding,” we learn that Please log in to see the rest of this story.