Just before you skip past this write up, judging from the clichéd title, and the usual criticism accompanying procrastinators, and because over time, the term procrastination is viewed in bad light. It is so bastardized a word that today’s world trends tend towards rewarding speed or being the quickest or striving to be the first to get most things done. Nevertheless at some point, everyone is guilty of procrastination. Have you asked yourself some questions as to, what’s stopping me from saying yes? What’s holding me back from going on a date with him/her? What’s making me take a standstill approach to that client? Etc.
Over the years, we have been bombarded with sermons, seminars, book titles or articles trying to help us cure, defeat, and eliminate this so called "Bad Habit". But is it really that bad? I mean Procrastination.
Now let's define the word Procrastination. According to the web dictionary, it defines it as "the action of delaying or postponing something". So in other words, it can also be understood as the "art of managing delay" which could actually lead to greater success or happiness (Partnoy 2012).
Now let's put this in the right context, for those that are culprits of the above terminology, try to figure out why you procrastinate. I myself have been guilty at some point and tagged a procrastinator. For some reason, I felt bad until I stumbled on a book by John Perry titled, “The Art of Procrastination: a guide to effective Dawdling, Lallygagging and Postponing". Using himself as a case study, he realized and termed himself as a "Structured or Active Procrastinator". This means someone that does other things while he puts some things on hold. He deliberately chooses to procrastinate because he weighs things of priorities. While in contrast, unstructured or Passive Procrastination is indeed the traditional sense relating to procrastinators. These type are lazy and paralyzed by their indecision to act and fail to complete tasks in time. (Please don't be this kind).
So moving forward, since we have categorized procrastination into two (2) as earlier read, I’ll will now outline four (4) reasons why you should not worry about holding off that task, project or decision for a later date as opposed to today.
1. Procrastination gives insight as to what’s important. According to John Perry, your subconscious mind is often telling you something when you want to delay a task. For productive persons, the desire to procrastinate could mean that this task is not important and maybe should be delegated in order to pay attention to other things of greater importance.
2. A structured or active Procrastinator makes better decisions. As earlier defined, procrastination is managing delay and using the delay in gathering information, better perspective, better understanding, wisdom and judgment regarding a matter, which is a recipe for success. Overtime, we like to believe there is wisdom in snap decisions and sometimes there is actually. However, it is also important to think through relevant time periods of our decisions to come out with the best possible outcomes.
3. Procrastination leads to creativity. When assigned to tasks that seem daunting, procrastinating often leads to brainstorming or inventing a better idea or way to work through the task.
4. Finally, procrastination may reduce anxiety. There are always things we really do not want to do, things that makes us uncomfortable, anxious or even afraid. But putting away time to mentally prepare yourself in tackling the task may reduce anxiety.
In conclusion, some persons can breathe a sigh of relief knowing the category they should fall into and sometimes embrace procrastination. Now we see that it is not as bad as it seems. Examine your procrastination from all angles and listen to it. It could be indication that your gut is trying to tell you something.
No comments:
Post a Comment