Photo courtesy of RawPixel on Unsplash
I’ve certainly had my battles with procrastination over the years. I’ve often seen it as a bad thing: the enemy of my productivity. A bad habit to rid myself of, and replace with more focus, more hustle. Sound familiar?
Procrastination is simply putting off, or delaying, something that we should be doing. When we think of procrastination we often see someone who has important work to do, or urgent deadlines looming, and they are doing anything possible to avoid doing the work. Think cat videos, a Netflix binge session, cleaning out the sock drawer ...
But, what if I was to suggest that procrastination could be good for us?
I was recently reading, Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist, and he stated that it is good to “Take time to mess around. Get lost. Wander. You never know where it’s going to lead you.”
Kleon’s message is to practice productive procrastination and herein lies the key. Productive procrastination. Procrastination with a goal in mind. Procrastination that results in a positive outcome, rather than just wasting time.
It got me thinking. Too much of any one thing is usually not helpful. Too much food and we’re likely to gain weight. Too much exercise and we’re likely to injure ourselves. Too much work and we’re likely to burn out.
In contrast, if we have the right amount of the right food and exercise, we’ll improve our health. If we do the right amount of the right work, we’ll experience achievement.
So, it follows that too much procrastination and we’re likely to get nowhere. But the right amount of the right procrastination could have positive effects. It sounds quite simplistic, doesn’t it?
I don’t believe the form of procrastination matters too much. It could be watching cat videos, scrolling social media, watching a movie, eating, going for a walk, cleaning the garage. We all have our go-to procrastination activity. Any activity that takes you away from directly working on your goals and action plans.
What matters more is the why, how and when of procrastination.
Procrastination borne out of fear or laziness is not helpful. This sort of procrastination will stop you from starting something important. Or doing the hard work to bring your goals to fruition. When I find myself procrastinating for these reasons, I realise I need to face those fears head on. Usually by reframing the fear and asking myself the question: what’s the worst thing that could happen? If the answer is along the lines of “they may not like my blog post”, that isn’t a reason not to write that blog post. So I buckle down and do the work. If I find myself succumbing to a feeling of laziness, lacking the energy to do certain tasks, I look at them with a new set of eyes - are these things aligned with my goals? Are they necessary (even if unpleasant) tasks that take me closer to my goals? Are they activities I need to quit doing altogether? Do I need more sleep or self-care to regain my energy? This helps me reset and get back to the work at hand.
Procrastination is useful when you need to reflect on something, to give your brain space to really think about something, and particularly when you need a splash of creativity. The neuroscience backs us up on this point in that our brain benefits from some form of ‘switching off’ from the main task. This is why we tend to have ideas in the shower or as we go to sleep. When we procrastinate productively, we aren’t mindlessly doing an activity to avoid doing the work. Instead we are deliberately using that alternative activity to give our brain some time to do the work indirectly. When I write my weekly blog posts, I obtain some feedback from a group of fellow bloggers. After reviewing the feedback I usually need to wait a day before going back to revisit my writing. In that time, my blog post is always there at the back of my mind, my brain working through the feedback and the improvements I want to make. Even if I’m scrolling social media during this time, I often come across examples or graphics that relate to my blog posts. Essentially nothing I do during that period of “procrastination” is wasteful. Ultimately, making the actual changes to my blog post becomes an easy task.
As we start a new year afresh with renewed goals and plans, I’ve found this a timely reminder. Procrastination is not the enemy of productivity. In reality, used wisely, procrastination can be a vital part of our productivity toolkit.
I’m definitely building in some productive procrastination to the way I work this year. How about you? I’d love to hear where procrastination has helped, not hindered you, so feel free to leave me a comment.