Why procrastination may actually be a good thing

Procrastination; why do we do it, under what conditions does its ugly head rise and, most importantly, how do we stop ourselves from doing it so often? In my last post I gave a few resources to help you stay focused on your work as the internet is notoriously guilty for giving us entertainment at a instant’s notice. Procrastination admittedly gets in the way

of a lot of things even if it’s as basic as replying to an email that’s been sitting in my inbox for over two weeks now. All I have to do is reply but I don’t, I do other things, a million other things when it would be so simple and easy to just do it right this second. But I won’t, why? Well, let’s look at what the point of procrastination really is and why maybe we shouldn’t try to repress it or let it run wild but rather acknowledge it and utilize it.

1.       You’re not committed

One of the reasons we procrastinate may be due to the fact that, deep within ourselves, we’re not committed to what it is we’re avoiding doing. Our procrastination is simply an indication that what we’re actually doing isn’t right for us and we should be doing something more constructive instead. Not emailing back a potential client? Maybe you just don’t like him or don’t want to work with him. When it’s concerning people you like and want to deal with, whether that’s within your business or personal life, you’re going to be quite eager to get back to them. Admittedly you may delay your replies as you think about an appropriately worded answer but if you’re avoiding it altoget

her then it’s probably a sign that really, you should be looking elsewhere.  Similarly when you’re writing a particular scene but you don’t find yourself ever wanting to complete it; maybe instead you’re writing other scenes to be put into the main story again at a later point, it may just be an indication that what you’re writing is too boring for even your readers to enjoy.

2.       You need time to think

We all need space and time to brainstorm properly as rushing never got anybody anywhere; apart from on a bus that’s about to drive away. If you’re going

too fast, not thinking things through or not sure where you’re going with something then taking a few minutes, or hours, to sit back and let things mull over for a while is surprisingly going to move things further forward. Books in particular need a lot of thought and, sometimes, a lot of planning even if it’s not the type of planning you write down. Giving yourself time to procrastinate means you can switch off for a minute and do something that requires zero effort and strain whilst, in the back recesses of your mind, you get yourself together and avoid the risk of writing something hollow or spontaneous.

I love that satisfactory feeling of completing all my goals, don't you?

                                                         
3.       You need to delegate or prioritize

Time management is an essential skill, not just for work, but for life too. Your procrastination is telling you that you don’t like to do something or that you need to waste a little time before continuing on with it. If you simply don’t like doing something and you have the ability to pass it on to somebody else, most typically in a work life scenario, then maybe you should. Continuing on with something you hate when somebody equally as a capable either doesn’t mind or quit likes it is a bad idea. If you hate something then it’s probably going to come across as sloppy, insincere, rushed, rude or thoughtless.

When it comes to prioritization’s relationship with procrastination, well, there’s a fine line. Both of them are behaviours that give you more time and that that is done instead of actually working but prioritization is generally a means of working out what needs to be done when and putting less important things further down your list. Procrastination is generally delaying or dawdling about but often you may find that you’re prioritizing, not procrastinating, and if so it’s time to ease up on yourself and not be so harsh. If you find yourself procrastinating when you have several quite important things to do and, rather than do one of them you find yourself doing another then it seems as though you’re just prioritizing instead. If you’re not working because you’re looking at pictures of cats on the internet, for hours, then you’re procrastinating.

4.       You need to do nothing

Following on from that last thought, sometimes ok to prioritize ‘doing fuck all’ instead of working. Our lives are often a mish-mash of social activities, work, chores, childcare, eating, exercise and hobbies that actual relaxation fails to make the cut. Social activities and hobbies are, to some, a means of relaxation but if you’re writing them in your diary then chances are you’re micro-managing things that are supposed to be a natural way of coming down from the high of life. Doing nothing is not necessarily a bad thing in fact, mentally and physically your health suffers if you are constantly running on the treadmill of life.

Nobody can stay on a task without a break, it’s cruel, and even the flimsy ’10 minute breaks for every 4 hours you work’ mantra of many work environments isn’t necessarily what the brain requires to maintain concentration and productivity. If you’re zoning out it’s not necessarily because you’re lazy it’s more likely to be a signal that you’re overworked and your brain is grappling for a way to recover from your stressful life. Meditation is popular for a reason; it allows people to intentionally disengage from everything including conscious thinking and to find a state of relaxation previously unattainable. I have never meditated but I imagine it to be something like a controlled zoning out with your eyes closed whilst you try your hardest to ignore everything in life. I can imagine how that would be peaceful. Whilst I’m not advocating people who have never meditated before to start meditating it could simply be that procrastination is a good opportunity to find a peaceful, less stressful, state of mind. It can be a means of restoring your concentration and enthusiasm for a task that you’re going to need to be doing for a long time. Short tasks, most likely, are much less stressful and won’t require sporadic walks in the park to keep you interested and stimulated.

Concerning concentration; in this study here concentration was shown to not be an on/off state of mind as many people previously assumed. The study showed that the mind tends to wander in situations that are not extremely challenging or requiring huge amounts of concentration. It does seem to depend on you as a person, do you find that you require a lot of concentration to write or is it more languid? If it’s requiring a great deal of concentration you may be stressing yourself out over a long period of time or, if it’s more languid, maybe you’re just not stimulated enough and it’s causing your mind to wander off.