#93 A little PROCRASTINATION hurts nobody!
Saturday, December 10, 2022
PROCRASTINATION - the vice of sloth or the virtue of prudence.
What are you putting off while reading the blog? The assignment which is due in 1 hour or the itinerary of your upcoming trip or some urgent phone calls? It is not a hidden fact anymore that we all love to procrastinate.
Scientists define procrastination as the act of delaying a task for a long time. This in turn piles up the work which becomes detrimental to your well being. However studies suggest that a little PROCRASTINATION can actually be beneficial.
Adam Grante in his book Original writes that procrastination in ancient Egypt was described using two different meanings - one denoted laziness while the other meant waiting for the right time. Sometimes people tend to procrastinate because they are too impatient and want to get things out of their plate even if it comes at the cost of making mistakes and expending much time in correcting them and redoing things again.
The greatest cost of procrastination and the biggest advantage of procrastination is reflected in creativity. Experiments have revealed that people who tend to procrastinate moderately could think of better and creative ideas. 'Moderately' being the important term here.
"Never put off till to-morrow what you can do the day after to-morrow just as ." Although Mark Twain said this satirically, he left an important lesson for us. Just a little procrastination, jotting down the ideas and writing after a day or two brings out the creativity. Remember that putting off creative tasks is useful because it allows you to interrogate the ideas in your mind. It won’t work if you spend your period of procrastination scrolling through your social media feed. The biggest disadvantage of procrastination is that a task can be left unfinished permanently. Hence it is important while procrastinating that you leave a task in the temporary state where you have the next thing figured out. This ensures that picking the task again is easy.
If you procrastinate on a particular task again and again, this means you hate doing that particular thing. Procrastination might actually not be the problem. A better solution would be to delegate that work or leave it completely for your happiness. PROCRASTINATION in this case is actually giving you hints to abandon the task from your life and how to be happier.
See you next weekend, until then have fun procrastinating :)
Cheers!