Procrastination is a funny thing; It only brings me sorrow.
But I can change at any time; I think I will … tomorrow!
No truer words, right?
Procrastination is, after all, an insidious habit that makes life more hectic, hurried and panicked. It robs us of peace, undermines excellence and degrades the joy that excellence produces.
Mediocrity is not an ingredient to happiness. But procrastination almost guarantees mediocrity, at least in comparison to our individual potential.
But does all procrastination bring sorrow and condemn us to a life of mediocre sub-excellence?
Rethinking Procrastination
I found myself rethinking the issue recently as my plate seemed to increasingly fill to overflowing with frustrating regularity. I’ve had to look hard at some of the items demanding my attention.
Things get particularly interesting when I try packing 48 hours’ worth of time, energy and to-do lists into a single 24-hour day.
That’s especially true when others’ priorities are not mine and mine are not theirs. This forces me to look close and hard, not only at what’s directly important to me, but what is indirectly important because I deeply care about the person or people who need something from me.
Paper-work, for instance, may be low on my list of priorities but if it’s high on my boss’ list, it had better move up a notch or two on mine. Same is true with kids and spouse and friends and God.
But what if too many important things are crowding your life? What if doing one thing that needs getting done means not doing something else that also needs attention?
Targeted Procrastination
If you’re like me, you typically have somewhere in the neighborhood of a gazillion things to do and time for only a frustratingly small handful of them. That’s where procrastination can be a hideous foe or a welcomed friend.
A targeted kind of procrastination–or habitually delaying everything else on your list to focus on a prioritized few–can prove life-saving (or at least sanity-saving).
I suppose this is little more than glorified list-making, but with an important twist. Often, when we fail to get to the bottom of our to-do lists, we can feel overwhelmed or guilty. What targeted procrastination does is to free us of the guilt often associated with that failure, and to recast it as something altogether positive.
You are choosing to delay without necessarily choosing to end a goal or priority or task. You are giving yourself permission to be lazy on certain items while you get to work busting your butt to accomplish other tasks you identify as more important to you at this time.
Permission to Delay
Please note the condition of the procrastination I’m advocating here. It’s not that I focus on something I necessarily prefer doing and ignore the rest. It is something more important than what I may prefer.
I may not feel like washing dishes. But if the paper plates are gone, the sink is full of dishes and the EPA is looking through my kitchen window in Hazmat suits taking pictures of the new ecosystem developing there, it doesn’t much matter that I would rather wash my car or go to the gym or watch an Oprah rerun.
One of the problems I personally encountered as I watched my plate fill and fretted over the growing load, is that I tended to pick at the edges of everything and so often finished nothing.
But a targeted kind of procrastination, where I actually give myself permission to habitually put off doing some things while I work on others can be life-changing.
The added benefit is that like other more traditional forms of procrastination, the procrastinated items either eventually get done as they percolate to the top of future lists or time is saved as you realize some items never belonged on the list in the first place.
Your thoughts …
What are you experiences and thought on procrastination? We would love to hear them in the comments!
Its about selection sometimes, that making of a decision when we hold the power in our hands, which do we choose to do to take, to let go and pass by. That kind of procrastination can be very helpful and works for us instead of against us.
Thank you for this post it is a perfect way to explain how something like procrastination which is usually seen as something undesirable can help us so much.
Stephen Anderson recently posted … Warren Buffett – Berkshire Hathaway
I like the visual of our decisions as holding power in our hands, Stephen. Nicely said!
I was going to include another form of procrastination in the post but felt it would have made it too long. It’s a sort of moral procrastination that allows us to “put off” temptation (whether its giving in to a bad habit, pigging out on a bag of chips or any of the more consequential temptations in life) as a way of not fighting ourselves (and therefore too often succumbing to the temptation) and tricking our brains into thinking a short delay will be easier than full-on denial until we no longer have the urge or compulsion to give in anymore. Anyway, just a thought still being shaped, but by your comment here, I thought you might be interested in hearing it in its semi-baked form. 😉
Thank you Ken, I have been thinking a lot about this post, it struck a chord with me, and I have been examining where I have been procrastinating in my life. That is kind of interesting idea about moral procrastination where we think if we delay, we will be better people somehow. Procrastination as a reward, not an idea we usually think about in terms of rewarding ourselves but maybe quite valid.
Stephen Anderson recently posted … Warren Buffett – Berkshire Hathaway
Hmm, interesting thought… I wouldn’t call this procrastination in my opinion. There’s only 1 thing at any given time that we can be procrastinating about, and that is what we decide beforehand to be the thing that matters most to us at that point in time.
Jeremy recently posted … Proud Of Calling Yourself A Professional Procrastinator?
Hey Jeremy, yeah, perhaps not procrastination in its strictest definition, but perhaps in spirit. The thing is that we too often feel we have to do everything at once. This is my attempt at helping us think differently about the challenges we face. And if the procrastination proclivity helps, why not rework it a bit? 🙂
But if procrastination is putting something off that should be done, then it seems to me that there are all kinds of things that can be procrastinated at any given moment.
But I do like the idea of deciding what’s most important in the moment and focusing our energy on that most important goal or person or task before going on to other items on the to-do list.
Thanks for the comment, Jeremy!
I can totally see where you’re coming from! I actually do find myself thinking that I have to do everything at once sometimes and that makes me lose focus. That’s why I decided to figure out the most important task at hand, be entirely sold to it, and just do it!
Jeremy recently posted … What If I Told You Networking Starts With Love?
I’ve never thought about procrastination in a positive light. Very interesting. I think you have hit on something here! 🙂