Why Procrastination Rocks

"How do you beat procrastination?", a student asked me. 

I don’t!

I have come to terms with my procrastination; I even enjoy it. Last weekend I had a deadline for a project. In just a couple of hours my house was cleaner than ever. The project could wait.

I have fully embraced my procrastination. Ok, the fact that I can finish tasks super fast when I have to, really helps. So it’s simple for me: I procrastinate and when I have no other option, no more time, I sit down, focus intensely and do whatever needs to be done. My focus is so sharp, that I perform better than If I take my time.

Procrastination also allows me more time to reflect on the task. I am a reflector. I need that time. I am not going to make drafts and plans and pre-work on something. I need to process everything in my mind and when I am ready (and out of time), there I go.

Procrastination has occasionally saved me. The delay had brought to surface information that was essential. Or, in other cases, it had provided me with the opportunity to say a “no” that I should have said from the beginning, but I hadn’t.

Thanks to procrastination I am more conscious of the task I am doing and why.

Oh, it can be fun too: I see friends I should have told them “I cannot join you, I have a deadline”, I take long walks in the city and I spend time helping my nieces with their homework, or letting them beat me at board games.  

Procrastination takes the pressure off, when there is something stressful or unpleasant that needs to get done, because after a certain amount of time and many internal dialogues it just doesn’t seem that significant any more, so with lightheartedness it gets done or dumped (the urgent vs important matrix works much better when procrastinating).

Finally, it’s because of procrastination that I can keep the house clean and tidy – how could I find the time to do that otherwise?

I tell you, Brian Tracy was right about Eating that Frog, but sometimes frogs are better eaten with a shorter (or longer) delay. 

PS: in writing this blog post, I didn’t procrastinate at all. The fact that the book I must read still lays untouched next to my keyboard, is purely coincidental.