My plan was a very simple one:

1. Make tea.

2. Write an article.

3. Make lunch.

If you prefer a visual representation, here’s my “planned route”:

What could go wrong?

This is what actually happened:

1. I made tea.

2. I noticed that the water wasn’t going down the sink, so I thought I’d clear the drain.

3. Then I thought, I might as well do the other drain while I’m at it.

4. I managed to get some “gunk” on the wall, and a skirting board, so I had to wash that all off.

5. Unfortunately, I too acquired some “gunk”, on my clothes, so I decided to get changed.

6. I thought, while I’m doing that, I might as well have a shower too.

7. After all that, I was ready for lunch.

And once again, here is a visual representation of it. This is the actual route I took:

Sometimes the “domino effect”, as I call it, is for a useful outcome. For example, it might look like this:

1. Idea: write an article on X.

2. Research X.

3. Realise that the article on X would make more sense if I wrote an article on Y first, so that I could refer to it in my article about X.

4. Research Y….

Is this sort of thing merely one elaborate displacement activity, to put off the act of writing? I don’t think so.

Except that, in writing this article, I still haven’t written the one I’d intended to several hours ago!