[billyhoffman]

I've seen this fallacy used in startups by technical (co)founders to justify procrastinating various other, "less interesting" parts of the business that are vitally important. I've done it myself more times than I'd like to admit.

It is very easy to say "I need to add/improve feature X, fix bug Y, or refactor Z" when what you really need to do is outbound sales activity, balance your books, or write blog content. You may already not enjoy those activities because they are some combination of hard, not fun, and something you don't really understand. Couple that with some engineering task of perceived equal importance, that you do know how to make progress on, and you can almost convince yourself its really not procrastination.

The best solution I have seen is to track progress on a macro level, so that product advancement is put on par with the other critical activities of the business. Having someone kick your ass when other areas slip is very helpful.