Bikeshedding is the tendency to spend time on unimportant details instead of working on high impact work. A great explanation can be found in The Decision Lab’s article on this phenomenon. A classic example is discussing formatting rules in software engineering. Code formatting often leads to heated debates, but the actual impact of such discussions is relatively small.
Bikeshedding can lead to a constant feeling of business and exhaustion without having achieved anything meaningful. I would not be surprised if this can be linked back to burnout in some way. Instead of focusing on minor tasks, we should prioritise high-impact work. Not only to be more productive, but also to do more meaningful work.
The behaviour might seem easy to spot, but people still fall into it due to hard work being unpleasant and uncomfortable. Our brains are wired to conserve energy, making it harder to tackle challenging tasks that offer long-term benefits instead of a short-term dopamine rush. This idea of doing hard work is explored in Cal Newport’s Deep Work.
I experience this a lot when working on this website. When coding, I have the tendency to get side-tracked by an adjacent problem. In software this is usually called 🦬 Yak Shaving. The adjacent problem is usually smaller and simpler and will give a faster dopamine hit. Because of this, I find it very hard to make meaningful progress on the important work.
The impact of bikeshedding is further compounded by 🧠Ego Depletion. A lot of effort is spent on unimportant work because of the need to make choices and spending mental energy. This makes it harder to complete the important work when you finally get to it. If you get to it in the first place.
One way to overcome bikeshedding is to “eat the frog”, which means starting with the most important task first. This prevents you from pushing that impactful work to the future and helps build momentum and a sense of accomplishment.