Self-Help Myths: Procrastination

June 25th 2007

The whole point of this Self-Help Myths series is to provide an alternative perspective on common self-help topics and one of the biggest topics in productivity circles is that of procrastination. It is the great bad habit that causes you to get distracted when you should be working and makes you rush your projects at the last minute. There is so much information out there on how to “overcome” it (even I have an article on it) that you can ironically spend much of your time researching the topic.

Most people procrastinate to some degree. We as humans struggle with forward planning, hence all the need for organizers and diaries. Cavemen didn’t worry about the future, they worked on their basic needs (food, water, shelter) as and when they needed to. Modern society is naturally a lot more complex and our basic needs are often taken for granted while we focus on other existential needs.

So essentially what does procrastination cause you to do? It causes you to defer tasks till later dates, typically those tasks that provide us with the least benefit or fulfillment at the current time. For example, going out this evening is a much more enjoyable activity, compared to staying in and doing an assignment, from which the benefit to you (handing it in and getting a good mark) will not become apparent for another week.

Let’s look at procrastination in a positive perspective and view the above example in a different light. The person may be leaving his assignment to the last minute but he will get it done (he has to work solidly for five days but that is a separate point). He spent the first week after getting the assignment partying and going out but now the urgency of the assignment is more pressing. He has essentially followed his mind’s natural approach, of which procrastination is an element of that.

You could argue that by leaving it to the last minute he has caused himself stress and anxiety, compared to an individual who started the work early and was able to take his time. However, this latter individual was also essentially working against himself, having to consciously resist immediate satisfaction and focus on working on something that would give him no pleasure for two weeks.

Take another practical usage of procrastination. The first person has to buy a book for his course so he goes straight into town and picks it up at premium price. The second person, after being told the price, puts it off for a few days. At this moment in time there is no immediate gain to him buying it (he naturally doesn’t want to spend so much money and is keen to avoid doing so) and the timescale is too long (the course doesn’t start for a week). When he finally does decide it is time to pick it up a few days later he discovers the book is on special price so he has saved money (an unexpected positive gain) and because the course starts in mere days he will able to use it straightaway.

I would be very interested in your thoughts on this topic. Do you agree that procrastination is not always the great burden it would seem to be or do you think this alternative argument is nonsense (please leave something more constructive than that though :).

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