Why do I procrastinate on hard tasks and do easy work instead?
Complex tasks stop giving quick dopamine hits, which triggers self-doubt and makes easy busywork feel like the only way to get a sense of accomplishment. This trap leaves major projects stalled for months while feeding feelings of imposter syndrome.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- It goes quiet, then comes back — 4 separate clusters since March 2026.
- This comes up 105.9× more often in r/ITManagers than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Pretending files are corrupted or lostDid this help you?
- 2Blaming software or IT issuesDid this help you?
- 3Opening documents and updating a date or two to look busyDid this help you?
- 4Passing tasks off to overseas or other teamsDid this help you?
- 5doing low level support tickets as a brain breakDid this help you?
- 6doing light physical or mindless tasks like unboxing monitors and pulling cablesDid this help you?
- 7staying late to clear out firewall requestsDid this help you?
- 8attending to simple tasks or onboarding new users to feel usefulDid this help you?
- 9sending manual reminders to the sales teamDid this help you?
- 10providing additional trainingDid this help you?
- 11using shared list views and homepage widgetsDid this help you?
- 12relying on notification bells and push remindersDid this help you?
- 13setting up automated scheduled flows to close or snooze old tasksDid this help you?
- 14replacing standard tasks with custom objectsDid this help you?
- 15implementing weekly digest reportsDid this help you?
- 16cheating to complete assignments at the last minuteDid this help you?
- 17doomscrolling or cleaning to avoid the taskDid this help you?
- 18seeking a medical evaluation for ADHDDid this help you?
- 19breaking work down into smaller 15-minute tasksDid this help you?
- 20reviewing material after the deadline to catch upDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“As the problems get more complex, the dopamine hit for solving problems gets harder to achieve and after a while you question your skills, which I'm pretty sure is where Imposter Syndrome kicks in.”source ↗
“Compared to projects that are months long and result in a lot of complaining from everyone along the way.”source ↗
“When I've spent all day bogged down with loads of complex issues that don't have perfect solutions... a nice little password reset or "here's how to download a report and open it in excel" is a relief.”source ↗
“You can actually feel like you accomplished something rather than having the same conversation about something that is never moving forward because no one is going to pay for it”source ↗
“If I could make sure my ducks are in a row then I wouldn’t be procrastinating in the first place 😉”source ↗
“No matter what I tried I could not get over the mental block of actually starting, focusing enough to understand, and finishing assignments.”source ↗
“I opened my computer thinking this shit was sunshine and rainbows and Pearson said “ part 1 of 35 “ I literally took a deep breath and closed the computer at 8 and haven’t opened it since.”source ↗
“I try and sit down and I just can’t idk if it’s me being so used to doomscrolling but I literally clean everything outside my room to avoid situations or assignments.”source ↗
“Our business unit went live with Salesforce less than a year ago. And since then, we've accumulated a lot of overdue tasks.”source ↗
“One day you wake up and realize: "This depends on me. No one is going to force me to get up early, or finish that hard task, or call the difficult customer."”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2Why is it so hard to do small cleaning tasks?
- 37How to stop doing everything at once as property manager
- 5How to delegate repetitive tasks without giving too much system access
- 2Why do job interviews require weeks of free take-home work?
- 2Why does ChatGPT give up on complex tasks?
- 16Why can't employees ever use the self service portal?