Top 20 'Spin-and-Stagnate' Habits to watch for when you're feeling busy but not productive - Goh Ling Yong
It's 7 p.m. Your laptop is still glowing, you've been "on" all day, and your brain feels like a wrung-out sponge. You've answered dozens of emails, sat in on three meetings, and juggled a handful of "urgent" requests. You've been undeniably busy. But as you finally close the lid, a nagging question surfaces: "What did I actually accomplish today?"
If that feeling is familiar, you've likely fallen into the 'Spin-and-Stagnate' trap. It’s the exhausting cycle of being in constant motion without making meaningful forward progress. It's the hamster wheel of modern work, where the illusion of productivity masks a reality of stagnation. You're spinning your wheels, burning fuel, but the scenery never changes. This isn't about being lazy; in fact, it often affects the most diligent and conscientious among us.
The first step to getting off this wheel is identifying the habits that keep you on it. These are the subtle, often subconscious behaviours that fill our days with activity but rob them of impact. Below, we'll break down the top 20 'Spin-and-Stagnate' habits. See how many you recognise—awareness is the key to reclaiming your focus and turning your busy-ness into real, tangible results.
1. The 'Just Checking' Email Reflex
You’re deep in a report, and a thought pops into your head: "I'll just quickly check if I've heard back from Sarah." This isn't a conscious decision; it's a deeply ingrained reflex. The email tab is our modern-day slot machine. We pull the lever (refresh the page) for a potential reward (a new message), and that small dopamine hit keeps us coming back for more.
The problem is that each "quick check" shatters your concentration. It takes an average of 23 minutes to fully regain focus after a distraction. Treating your inbox like a to-do list dictated by others ensures you spend your day in a reactive state, fighting other people's fires instead of building your own masterpiece.
The Fix: Implement "email batching." Designate two or three specific times per day (e.g., 9:30 AM, 1:00 PM, and 4:00 PM) to process your inbox. Close the tab and turn off notifications outside of these windows. You’ll be amazed at how much deep work you can accomplish in the uninterrupted silence.
2. Notification Tyranny
Every ping, buzz, and swoosh from your phone or desktop is a direct assault on your focus. These notifications are designed to be irresistible, hijacking your brain's reward system. We tell ourselves we can ignore them, but each one plants a seed of curiosity: "What was that? Is it important? Should I look?"
This creates a state of continuous partial attention, where you're never fully present in the task at hand. You're half-writing a proposal while half-wondering about that Slack message. This isn't multitasking; it's just doing two things poorly.
The Fix: Conduct a notification audit. Go into your phone and desktop settings and ruthlessly disable every notification that isn't absolutely critical. Keep alerts for calls from your family, but turn off the ones for social media, news apps, and even most work-related chat apps. Reclaim your right to choose when you engage.
3. Shallow Task Switching
This is the habit of bouncing between small, low-effort tasks without ever settling into something substantial. You open a document, then reply to a Slack message, then check your calendar, then glance at your email, then go back to the document—all within five minutes.
This creates the feeling of being a busy, responsive team player. In reality, you're just skimming the surface of your work. Deep, valuable work—the kind that requires critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving—is impossible in this state. You’re warming up the engine over and over without ever putting the car in gear.
The Fix: Embrace single-tasking with a tool like the Pomodoro Technique. Set a timer for 25 minutes and commit to working on one thing and one thing only. When the timer goes off, take a 5-minute break. This simple structure trains your brain to sustain focus.
4. Over-Planning and Tool Tinkering
Do you ever spend more time setting up your project management tool, colour-coding your calendar, or designing the perfect Notion dashboard than you do on the actual project? This is a sophisticated form of procrastination disguised as productivity.
It feels good because you're organising the work. You're creating systems and structures, which seems like progress. But at a certain point, planning becomes a substitute for doing. You get stuck in "setup mode" and never move on to execution, where the real value is created.
The Fix: Use the "good enough" principle for your tools and plans. Create a simple, functional plan and then start. You can always refine the system later. The goal is to do the work, not to build the perfect scaffolding around the work.
5. Attending 'Just in Case' Meetings
Your calendar is a sea of back-to-back meetings. You accept invites for meetings where you have no clear role, just in case something important is said or a decision is made that might affect you.
This habit is a massive time sink. You spend hours passively listening, half-engaged, while your most important work waits for you. It stems from a fear of missing out (FOMO), but the real cost is missing out on the time you need to make your own unique contributions.
The Fix: Before accepting any meeting invite, ask yourself: "What is my role here? Is my presence essential for this meeting to succeed?" If the answer isn't clear, politely decline or ask the organiser for clarification. Suggest that you can catch up on the meeting notes afterward.
6. The Illusion of Research
"Research" can be a black hole. You start by looking for a specific statistic for a presentation and, two hours later, you're 15 tabs deep into an unrelated but fascinating topic. It feels productive because you're learning, but it's not goal-oriented.
This is a form of "productive procrastination." You're avoiding the harder work of creating, writing, or building by hiding in the comfortable, passive act of consuming information. It’s the intellectual equivalent of tidying up your desk instead of starting your tax return.
The Fix: Define your research scope before you begin. Write down exactly what you're looking for and set a timer. Once the time is up or you've found what you need, stop. Close the tabs and move on to the next step of your project.
7. Perfecting the Unimportant
You've just spent 45 minutes formatting an internal-only document that only three people will ever see. You agonise over the perfect font, alignment, and colour scheme for a weekly update email. This is "gold-plating"—applying an unnecessary level of polish to a low-impact task.
We do this because it's easier and more satisfying than tackling the big, ambiguous, and challenging projects on our list. It provides a quick win and a sense of completion, but it’s a poor use of your most valuable resource: your attention.
The Fix: Apply the 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle). Ask yourself, "Is this task in the 20% of activities that will deliver 80% of my results?" If not, give it the minimum effort required to be effective and move on. Save your perfectionism for the work that truly matters.
8. Procrasti-cleaning and Procrasti-organising
Your most important deadline is looming. Suddenly, you're overcome with an urgent, undeniable need to reorganise your desktop files, clean your keyboard, or alphabetise the books on your shelf.
This is a classic avoidance tactic. Your brain, intimidated by the large, important task, seeks refuge in small, simple, and controllable activities. You get the satisfaction of bringing order to chaos, but it's a micro-order that distracts from the macro-chaos of your impending deadline.
The Fix: Use the "2-Minute Rule." If a task takes less than two minutes, do it immediately. If your procrasti-task will take longer, write it down on a "later" list and force yourself to spend just 5 minutes on the big, intimidating project. Often, starting is the hardest part.
9. Vague To-Do Lists
Your to-do list for the day simply says: "Project Phoenix." What does that even mean? Where do you start? This kind of vague entry invites procrastination because it represents a giant, undefined blob of work, not an actionable step.
Your brain looks at "Project Phoenix" and sees hours of difficult work. It immediately searches for something easier and more concrete, like "Answer emails." A good to-do list should be a series of clear, specific, and actionable commands.
The Fix: Break it down. Instead of "Project Phoenix," your list should read: "1. Outline the introduction for the Project Phoenix report. 2. Email David for the Q3 sales data. 3. Create the first three slides of the presentation deck." Each item should be a small, completable verb-led action.
10. Saying 'Yes' to Everything
A colleague asks for help, your manager adds another "small" task to your plate, and you say yes to it all. You want to be seen as helpful, capable, and a team player. But a 'yes' to one thing is an implicit 'no' to something else—often your own priorities.
This habit leads to a schedule that's packed with other people's priorities. You become a short-order cook, fulfilling requests as they come in, with no time left to prepare the gourmet meal you were hired to create. Here at the Goh Ling Yong blog, we advocate for strategic and intentional commitment.
The Fix: Learn the art of the graceful 'no'. You can say, "I'd love to help, but my plate is full with X and Y right now. Could we check back in next week?" Or, "That sounds interesting. To take that on, I'd need to de-prioritise Z. Can you help me decide which is more important?" This frames the 'no' as a strategic choice, not a refusal to help.
11. Mistaking Motion for Action
There’s a big difference between motion and action. Motion is reading another book on leadership, attending another webinar on sales techniques, or planning your new workout routine. Action is having a difficult conversation with a team member, making five more sales calls, or actually going to the gym.
Motion feels productive and safe. There's no risk of failure or rejection. Action is where progress happens, but it's also where the friction is. The 'Spin-and-Stagnate' cycle thrives on motion because it provides the feeling of progress without the results of it.
The Fix: For every "learning" or "planning" activity, schedule a corresponding "doing" activity. Finished a chapter of a book on coding? Immediately spend 30 minutes trying to apply what you learned. Planned a new marketing campaign? The very next step must be to write the first piece of copy.
12. The 'Quick Check' Social Media Scroll
It starts innocently. "I'll just take a 5-minute break and see what's new on LinkedIn." Forty-five minutes later, you emerge from a scroll-induced trance, feeling groggy, slightly anxious, and completely derailed from your work.
Social media feeds are engineered to be bottomless pits of distraction. They are a firehose of context-free information that fragments your attention and depletes your willpower. Even a "quick check" can leave a cognitive residue that makes it harder to focus on complex tasks afterward.
The Fix: Set firm boundaries. Use app blockers during your work hours. Move social media apps off your phone's home screen and into a folder. Better yet, remove them from your phone entirely and only check them on a desktop browser at a designated time.
13. Multitasking During Calls and Meetings
You're on a Zoom call, but you're also typing an email, checking Slack, and maybe even reviewing a document. You think you're being efficient by "doubling up," but you’re failing at both tasks.
You miss key nuances in the conversation, forcing you to ask for clarification later. Your email is riddled with typos because your attention is divided. This habit is not only unproductive but also disrespectful to the other people in the meeting. It signals that their time isn't as valuable as yours.
The Fix: When you're in a meeting, be in the meeting. Close all other tabs and windows. Take notes with a pen and paper to keep your hands and mind engaged. If a meeting isn't engaging enough to hold your full attention, that's a sign you probably shouldn't be there in the first place.
14. Re-reading and Re-checking Endlessly
You've written an important email. You read it. You read it again. You check for typos. You read it one more time from the recipient's perspective. This cycle of endless re-checking stems from a fear of making a mistake.
While diligence is a virtue, obsessive checking is a form of procrastination rooted in perfectionism. It drains time and energy that could be spent on your next task. You're stuck in a loop of seeking 100% certainty in an uncertain world, which is an impossible standard.
The Fix: Trust your first or second check. For most tasks, press "send" and move on. Adopt a "done is better than perfect" mindset, especially for reversible decisions. The small risk of a minor typo is usually worth the huge gain in time and momentum.
15. Working Without a Clear Priority
You start your day by opening your inbox and letting the first unread email dictate your morning. You drift from task to task based on what feels most urgent or what's freshest in your mind, without a guiding strategy.
A day without clear priorities is a day left to chance. You might be busy, but you're likely working on low-impact tasks while your most important, long-term goals gather dust. As Goh Ling Yong often advises clients, if you don't set your own agenda, someone else will set it for you.
The Fix: Start each day by identifying your 1-3 Most Important Tasks (MITs). These are the tasks that, if completed, would make you feel accomplished no matter what else happens. Write them down and tackle your #1 MIT first, before the distractions of the day take over.
16. Ignoring Your Energy Cycles
You try to force yourself to do creative writing at 3 p.m., even though that's when you consistently feel a post-lunch slump. Or you schedule detail-oriented spreadsheet work for first thing in the morning when your brain is primed for bigger-picture thinking.
Productivity isn't just about managing your time; it's about managing your energy. We all have natural ultradian rhythms—90- to 120-minute cycles of high and low energy. Working against these rhythms is like trying to swim against a current. You'll get tired fast and won't get very far.
The Fix: Track your energy levels for a week. Note when you feel most focused, creative, and motivated, and when you feel sluggish. Then, schedule your tasks accordingly. Do your most demanding deep work during your peak energy hours and save shallow tasks like answering emails for your slumps.
17. The 'Inbox Zero' Obsession
The goal of achieving and maintaining "Inbox Zero" can turn your email into a video game. You get a rush from clearing every last message, but the game never ends. New messages are always coming in, keeping you tethered to a reactive workflow.
Chasing Inbox Zero often means prioritising the new and the noisy over the truly important. You're letting external demands completely dictate your workday, and the quiet, focused time needed for strategic work gets squeezed out.
The Fix: Redefine your goal. Aim for "Inbox Processed," not "Inbox Zero." This means every email has been read and has a designated next step: it's been replied to, archived, deleted, or turned into a task on your actual to-do list. Your inbox is a processing station, not your home.
18. Brainstorming Without a Boundary
Brainstorming sessions can be energising and fun. But when they are endless and unstructured, they become a form of 'Spin-and-Stagnate'. You generate a hundred great ideas but never bridge the gap to execution.
The team feels a sense of camaraderie and creativity, which is valuable. However, if these sessions consistently end without clear next steps, assigned owners, and deadlines, they are just productivity theatre. It's the motion of creating without the action of building.
The Fix: Structure your creative sessions. Set a clear goal for the brainstorm. Use a timer. Most importantly, dedicate the last 25% of the meeting to one thing: convergence. Decide which ideas to move forward with, define the very next action step for each, and assign a person to be responsible for it.
19. Solving Problems That Don't Exist Yet
You're building a new internal process, and you start planning for every single edge case and "what if" scenario that could possibly occur, even the highly improbable ones. This is over-engineering, and it's a huge time-waster.
This habit is driven by a desire for control and a fear of being unprepared. But by trying to build a bulletproof system for a future you can't predict, you delay launching a "good enough" version that could be delivering value right now.
The Fix: Focus on the "Minimum Viable Product" (MVP) principle, even for internal projects. Build the simplest possible version that solves the core problem. Launch it, get feedback from real-world use, and then iterate. Solve problems as they arise, not before they exist.
20. Confusing Urgency with Importance
Your day is a constant flurry of putting out small fires. An "urgent" request from a colleague, a last-minute data pull for a manager, a "quick question" on Slack. These tasks demand your immediate attention, so they feel important.
The Eisenhower Matrix teaches us that tasks can be urgent, important, both, or neither. The 'Spin-and-Stagnate' zone is living almost exclusively in the "Urgent but Not Important" quadrant. You feel like a hero for solving problems all day, but you're neglecting the "Important but Not Urgent" quadrant, which is where strategic planning, skill development, and long-term growth live.
The Fix: Before jumping on a task, pause and ask: "Is this truly important, or is it just loud?" Learn to differentiate between a genuine crisis and someone else's poor planning. Deliberately schedule time in your calendar for your important, non-urgent tasks, and protect that time as fiercely as you would a meeting with your CEO.
It's Time to Stop Spinning
Seeing your own habits on this list isn't a reason to feel bad; it's a reason to feel hopeful. Awareness is the first and most critical step toward change. You can't fix a problem you don't know you have.
Don't try to tackle all 20 at once. That's a recipe for overwhelm. Instead, pick just one—the one that made you nod your head the most vigorously. Focus on changing that single habit for the next 21 days. Build a small, sustainable system to counteract it. Once it starts to feel natural, pick the next one.
By systematically identifying and replacing these 'Spin-and-Stagnate' habits with more intentional actions, you can trade the exhausting illusion of productivity for the deep satisfaction of genuine progress. You can end your day not just tired, but truly accomplished.
Which of these habits hit closest to home for you? Share your biggest "Spin-and-Stagnate" challenge in the comments below. Let's start a conversation and help each other get off the hamster wheel for good!
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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