Possibly the best solution I've ever heard, from Geoff Dyer:

'Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I ­always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something.'

Is this not procrastination?

Not sure if it's possible just to 'have' more than one idea at a time. Ideas choose you not the other way round. It's a bit like saying, "Make sure you have between 7 and 8 hours sleep a night." Well, yes, I would if I had any influence at all over how long I can keep asleep for!

Is this not procrastination?

That depends on whether or not Geoff was trying to prevent you from going out to mow the lawn by tricking you into thinking you were actually trying to write. Or perhaps, fooling you into believing that it is better to be flitting from project to project so as to never quite recognise the awful truth of the project you should be focussing your efforts exclusively onto.

Well, for me it's definitely possible to have more than one idea/piece of writing on the go at any one time, but what I identified with was:

I ­always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something

and liking the idea that I'd be better off bunking from one bit of writing to another, rather than mowing the lawn...

Interesting...

I can't have more than one big writing project on the go, but I love it when I've got some other, more minor or less intense creative work that I can turn to when the big project is in a resting phase and I positively shouldn't be fiddling with it, or it's just that I've only got half a day for my own work, in a fortnight either way, and I won't be able to get back into the novel and do anything useful in that time. It's one of original functions of the blog - to have a place to flex my writing muscles which isn't The Novel.

But then, on the whole, writing has always been my bunking off from real life, so the choice is the other way round for me.

(And interesting too how 'prevarication', which used only to mean lying by omission, has come to mean 'procrastination'. Even OED agrees.)

Interesting point about usage of prevarication - thanks Emma.

Anna, interesting idea. I think my brain does operate like that, so it's useful to think of a way to harness that and make it work for us.

Emma, thanks for that point on procastinating...I'll do that a bit now by looking words up!
Debac, exactly, I think whatever tricks you can use to get you working in the right direction....

(And interesting too how 'prevarication', which used only to mean lying by omission, has come to mean 'procrastination'. Even OED agrees.)

So what word best describes the meanderings of bankers and politicians when they're found out?

I think prevarication is a great word for it. But now, the pointedness of the word is lost. Shame.