Procrastination—Why Do Today What You can put off until tomorrow?
As children, we were told by our teachers and parents to never procrastinate. Procrastination leads to failure—but then again, we all procrastinate. According to studies, 95% of students say that they procrastinate [1]. We need to stop putting procrastination in a negative light, and instead learn how to do so successfully. So the question is, how do we procrastinate effectively?
Famous Procrastinators
J.K. Rowling
The author of the Harry Potter series often talked about procrastinating. She says that she is, in fact, “rather good” at procrastination. She remarks that she would often find herself doing something else instead of working on the harder chapters and fixing the plot holes in her book, especially when working on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix [2].
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The famous composer from Austria constantly procrastinated despite being considered one of the greatest composers ever. One of his greatest works wasn’t even completed til the night before its premiere! “His friends, however, became uneasy, and one of them said to him, “Mozart, the first performance of ‘Don Giovanni’ is tomorrow, and you have not yet written the overture”” [3]. Despite his issues with procrastination, he continues to be one of the greatest artistic minds ever [2][4].
Leonardo da Vinci
The genius Leonardo da Vinci left many of his projects unfinished, and he was constantly flitting through other projects. Yet, his way of procrastination constantly kept him busy working on multiple ideas—artistic works, scientific hypotheses, and new inventions. Isaacson describes his process as “…procrastinating like Leonardo requires work: it involves gathering all the possible facts and ideas, and only after that allowing the collection to simmer” [5]. This apparently worked, as he is know for great achievements all across the academic world [2][4].
Douglas Adams
The author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy famously said, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by" [6]. He notes that he often needed pressure to produce any writing at all [2][4].
All of these geniuses struggled and often lived off of the pressure of procrastination. Despite this, they achieved great things because they procrastinated successfully.
How Do I Procrastinate Effectively?
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done" —Rita Mae Brown
Procrastination Strategies
Structured & Active Procrastination
When you are procrastinating a task try to accomplish a smaller easier task instead. This way you are checking something else that you need to do off of your list, and get into the right mindset to do your bigger tasks. You understand the reason you are procrastinating, but you are doing something productive [7][8].
Time Allocation
If you are going to become a successfule procrastinator, you are going to need to understand how much time it will take to do a task. You need to be able to specifically estimate how long it takes to complete it by the deadline [7].
Passive Preparation
Try mentally preparing for a task. Read articles, talk to others about your task, and think about ways to complete it. This will allow you to think about it without the pressure of completing the task, and will prepare you for when you actually have to [7].
Accept It
Call procrastination a work style, rather than a bad practice. Understand the positives and negatives to procrastinating and learn how to work with it. It isn't a negative thing. Historically, procrastination was not viewed in a poor light, in fact, the Greek and Romans would procrastinate on purpose [8].
Procrastination is just a universal state of being for humans. We will always have more things to do than we can possibly do, so we will always be imposing some sort of unwarranted delay on some tasks. The question is not whether we are procrastinating, it is whether we are procrastinating well." —Frank Partnoy
Now go out and procrastinate effectively!
Created By Isabella Trakimowicz
References
[1] https://gitnux.org/student-procrastination-statistics/ [2] https://virtuemap.com/famous-procrastinators/ [3] https://archive.org/details/lifeofmozart0000holm [4]https://solvingprocrastination.com/famous-procrastinators/#Mozart\ [5]https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501139169?&linkCode=sl1&tag=solvingprocrastination-20&linkId=bffcb1ecb340a31bc7aa7dde6880f1aa&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl [6] https://archive.org/details/hitchhikerbiogra0000simp [7] https://www.psychalive.org/8-tips-to-procrastinate-effectively/ [8]https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-procrastination-is-good-for-you-2102008/
Credits:
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