Today I'm thinking about procrastination. I'm a life-long procrastinator, and I've found that even for the bad rap that procrastination gets, it's been a useful strategy for me. It has helped me remain focused on more pressing matters, use my time efficiently, weed out busywork, and be more deliberate about what I 'do' in a society that's caught in the trap of believing that success is defined by how busy you are, or how many things you get done in a day.
Of course, to believe that procrastination has *always* served me well would be going too far. Sometimes it hasn't. Sometimes it's led to poor quality outcomes; sometimes it's led to high levels of stress. These times have been few, and in a certain light they've also supported efficiency. The poorer outcomes have not been good, and certainly not excellent, but they've been sufficient. The high level of stress sometimes induced via the procrastination serves as a motivator, and I can't recall any time that it rose to a level of intolerability.
A few months back I came across a TED talk on the topic of procrastination that I absolutely loved! I loved it most for the speaker's use of the 'Instant Gratification Monkey' concept. (I kinda love monkeys.) It was a really cute and effective mechanism for explaining the impetus behind procrastination. Another powerful concept that Tim Urban spoke of in the talk was the "Life Calendar". That's one that I'd forgotten about until I re-watched the talk today, and I might explore how I can use something like that...tomorrow, maybe.
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