I'd rather be painting Procrastination – the art of placing
tremendous importance on sometimes useless, sometimes mundane, or
sometimes much more interesting actions, in order to avoid doing
allegedly required tasks. The general belief is that procrastination
is not a good thing because it delays the inevitable and puts a
spanner in the works of getting things done on time or even earlier,
something many teachers, bosses, and managers take great pains to
point out.
Yet, have you ever considered the benefits of procrastinating? There
are actually some good reasons to procrastinate, as you'll discover
when learning how to master the art of procrastination, all for the
greater personal good of course!
_Note: While there is no one-size-fits-all formula for successful
procrastination, the following steps aim to provide a helpful steer.
Coming up with your own beneficial methods of procrastinating is a
form of procrastination in itself!_
!! Steps !!
Contemplate the reasons that make procrastination a good thing to
add to your daily tasks. Time management experts (and an awful lot
of bloggers nowadays) insist that procrastination is your own worst
enemy and that that letting it pervade your life will end up with
you biting your nails, shredding your hair, and not doing the best
you can, obliging you to perform poor last-minute work to get your
tasks done. Anti-procrastinators are ready with scoldings,
admonishing you with the potential for failure. Turn this apparent
"problem" around by considering the benefits of procrastinating:
* You can percolate a lot of ideas. Instead of snapping to it and
methodically working through the task, a procrastinator could very
well be allowing the ideas to percolate, mature, and bubble to the
surface in a much more inspired and fascinating form.
* You can avoid problems as much as create them. Jumping right in
and doing something without thinking through the consequences and
finding the weaknesses can bring about new problems and delays.
Procrastinating can provide the thinking buffer space to find what
can go wrong and to find ways around that. Equally,
procrastinating can unearth all the things that never really
needed doing anyway - think how many times you've been glad you
didn't jump to it when asked and how that saved you from a lot of
trouble because either someone else did it, or it ended up not
being a good idea to do it anyway.
* You might be using procrastination to protect yourself when you're
not ready to do something. If you lack the skills, the courage, or
the experience, procrastination can prevent you from leaping in
where you're just plain incompetent or not capable.
* Procrastination can allow an unpalatable idea or task to grow on
you. If you've been putting it off because you hate it, or don't
want to be associated with it, procrastinating can provide the
time needed to get used to it and to eventually settle in to a
place of acceptance that lets you get on without feeling
disinterested or even hostile about being involved in something.
* Procrastination can give you the time needed to build up the
energy needed to proceed with gusto when you do get going.
* For people whose work is principally cerebral based, doing
something practical (with the hands) is often a much-needed break
from the depths of intellectualizing everything.
* Think about all the other things that _are_ getting done as you
avoid the procrastinated task!
Do I really want to do this anymore? Listen to your procrastination.
Procrastination happens for a reason, as much as any other
task-impacting attitude. Aside from the possible reasons outlined in
the previous step, learning to listen to your procrastination can be
a way of listening to your inner feelings when you would rather put
that challenging task on hold. Is it possible that your
procrastination is telling you one of the following?:
* What you're doing is genuinely boring and even if it has to be
done, perhaps there are better ways of doing it? Ways that don't
necessarily involve you, or you on your own?
* What you're doing isn't your strength or even interest. Perhaps
you're studying the wrong field because your parents told you to
become a doctor or lawyer but you wanted to be an artist? Or
perhaps you're working in the wrong job because you liked the
sound of the company until you joined it and realized what you're
really in for?
* What you're doing is riddled with inconsistencies, weaknesses,
errors, and blatant inaccuracies but to fix these would take a lot
of effort or even explaining to the boss and you know it's way
over your ability to fix.
* What you're doing is no longer a strength of yours because you've
moved on mentally and experience-wise and you're ready for a new
challenge.
* What you're doing is objectively pointless, and there are probably
really much better things you could be expending your energies on.
You just need to find the right way to explain this to the boss,
teacher, or client...
What a deadline looks like as it whooshes by Think about the value
of deadlines to you. Deadlines are the fuel of procrastination. And
even though deadlines are often couched in terms of self-discipline
and personal blame when they're missed or poorly met, they're less
about virtuous behavior and more about achieving conforming behavior,
which is often the reason why some people hate meeting them – there
is an element of resentment or rebellion against being _made_ to meet
someone or something else's determined time. For other people though,
deadlines bring out their best and bring on the adrenalin pump needed
to dig in and pull out the inner genius that produces outstanding
work at the last minute. And if you have work that is lackluster and
routine, a deadline can sometimes be truly the only source of
motivation to bring about its completion. Recognizing how you value
or cope with deadlines is part of procrastinating in a way that
doesn't harm your own goals, efforts, and opportunities in the long
run. Deadlines can be the procrastinator's friend if they're viewed
in a positive light, as a source of eventual motivation and as a
source of drawing out creativity.
* Work out your perfect equilibrium of brushing with deadlines and
getting work done successfully. Once you know the absolute limit,
use a balance of both deadlines and procrastination to your
advantage.
Slow down. Procrastination can be viewed as one means of putting the
brakes on your speedy, out-of-control lifestyle or work pace. It can
be the pathway to more thinking and less doing, something sadly
lacking in our harried, over-filled modern lives.
* Stop admiring busy people and busy methodologies. These can give
the impression of doing when really, nothing's happening at all.
At least when procrastinating, something else is happening!
* Allocate thinking time. Allow yourself to use this time to think
through ideas, consequences, and the bigger picture.
* Enjoy the process and not the destination. Procrastinating allows
you to immerse in the process. Some of it's boring, some of it's
rough, some of it's really enjoyable but all of it's a whole.
Procrastination is like a thread weaving the entire process
together, keeping it moving along toward its inevitable end point
but allowing you to swim with the flow and enjoy life as you get
there.
* Embrace distractions for what they are and let guilt fly.
* Recognize that a refreshed you works twice as hard and twice as
focused upon return to the task at hand. Sticking with it without
breaks, means losing sight of the forest for the trees as your
perspective and enthusiasm turns stale.
* If other people want to negatively label your thinking time
procrastination, that's fine. Tell them that procrastination has
become a positive, must-do in any modern achiever's life and watch
their confusion.
Quit being an automatic worry robot Avoid excessive contemplation
about the future. While a little consideration of the future is
naturally essential for healthy living, obsessing about where you
want to be in 5, 10, and 15 years time can lead to burn-out, and can
stick you on course for a narrow trajectory focused always on the
future, on the person you're planning to become instead of
celebrating the person you already are. Procrastination requires that
you live in the now, in the present, and don't let things like
graduation, job loss, homelessness, and financial dependence cloud
your thinking. Excessive worrying doesn't change anything but it can
entrap you in a cycle of fear, marrying you to sub-standard work and
living choices for the rest of your life because you're too afraid of
the consequences of letting go of those initial sub-standard choices.
_ Find the life/work balance Value leisure and work time
equally. The true procrastinator sees equal value in both the video
game and the thesis or work paper. This is balance in action and
valuing them equally is a sign that you've got your priorities
ordered toward both work and_ play, not all work and no play (which,
as we all well know, makes a person dull of mind and heart).
* Balance procrastination with obligation. Life isn't either all
easy cruising or all full throttle. Try to combine both elements
in your life and allow distractions in rather than letting them
become moments of guilt or worry.
Find ways to procrastinate. While procrastination is not really
something you need to be told how to do, it can be incredibly
reassuring to learn that you are not alone in doing the following
motley and amusing procrastinating activities (and feel free to
indulge in any of them), outlined in the next few steps.
Get creative. Something as simple watching a fan blow your papers
all over the room can keep you enthralled for hours. You can even
draw all over your stomach.
* Stare at the mirror and make random faces. For starters, you could
act like a monkey, just fold your lips inside and over your teeth,
and jump around like a madman. If you can do this for a good half
hour, you've been successful at wasting a good chunk of your time.
* Stare out the window. Notice what form the clouds are taking,
people watch, count the arrival times of trains, watch the street
being swept and work out how long it'll take to reach the next
corner, etc.
* Create your own laser light show.
If you insist on the TV, make sure you check all the channels. One
of the beauties of procrastination is that it creates interest where
none existed before. For example, the cooking channel becomes the
equivalent of late night Cinemax; or watch the Spanish channel and
try to figure out what's being said.
* Always choose movies over TV shows. TV shows are an hour maximum,
most half an hour (some specials, especially some reality shows,
sporting events, and shows on the History Channel are two). Each
time a show ends, it forces you to make a decision between work
and more TV. If you're given that decision two times every hour,
sooner or later you'll crack. Movies, on the other hand, are at
least two hours, and since most channels string about three movies
together, that is only three TV-work decisions in six hours!
* Worship Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, and Jackie Chan. These three
men are a procrastinator's dream, since their movies are a) always
on TV, at any hour of the day or night; b) have plots that revolve
around roundhouse kicks and gigantic explosions, letting the mind
relax without having to cope with a complex story; and c) never
mention any form of work. For example, Steven Seagal has never
seen a cubicle, unless he was either killing someone in it, or
blowing it up. For those who don't enjoy action movies, romantic
comedies can act as a substitute, since they are all the same, and
create the same mental lethargy.
If the computer is your weapon of choice, always kill the ninja,
always. If you see a pop-up that asks you to shoot, poke, prod,
laser-blast, punch, kick, or place some object in something, play it
immediately. Not only can you win free cool junk and spam, but there
is a never-ending stream of these games.
* Click on any links you can find. This will allow you to access new
and interesting information, that your mind will absorb instead of
the work, clearing all thoughts of work right away.
* Access your favorite forum at least once in a half hour, and while
checking out the posts, refresh the page every two seconds to
check for new replies. This should pretty much keep you busy for a
good while and keep you from doing real work. Have you checked
your Farmville account lately?
* Browse wikiHow or Wikipedia. Go to a random page and click on the
blue links (there are plenty in this article for starters). Not
only will you procrastinate, you'll be learning at the same time!
* Don't worry. If you spend all your time worrying about
the work you haven't done, then you aren't enjoying your
procrastination and you're missing the point of productively
introducing procrastination into your life. Just let your mind
rest, clear it of worries, and focus on enjoying the distractions.
Work is only as serious as you make it. Procrastination lets you
enjoy the little things in life that would otherwise pass you by.
The grass is greener, the clouds are fluffier, and Seagal's boots
are just a little bit more bloodsoaked.
!! Tips !!
* Procrastination becomes a true art form when you are able to use
procrastination to totally erase any guilt you feel about not
having completed your work. If the paper is three weeks late and
you're going out drinking, you figured it out.
* Write a list. The next time you find yourself procrastinating,
write a quick list of "Why I like to procrastinate". You might
surprise yourself as to the reasons that are going down on the
list, as there could be impetus to reprioritize a lot of things in
your life!
* Chilling totally is not the same as procrastinating.
Procrastinating is doing something else, even if that's thinking.
Chilling is downtime, when nothing is meant to intrude on your
peace, and definitely not worries about what else you ought to be
doing.
!! Warnings !!
* There is procrastination and there is procrastination. If
procrastination is halting your progress along your intended path
in life, then it's unhealthy; good procrastination is an aid to
uncovering what really motivates you and what makes you enjoy the
here and now. If all it does is cause you to give up on anything,
then it's self-sabotage rather than procrastination. Be sure to
get the balance right and avoid harming your own chances of
getting your life well sorted.
!! Things You'll Need !!
* Things other than the things you should be doing
!! Related WikiHows !!
* How to Do Nothing
* How to Look Busy at Work Without Really Working
* How to Waste Time
* How to Exercise an Open Mind
* How to Stop Procrastinating
!! Article Tools !!
* Read on wikiHow
*
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