A guide to procrastination

For a long time, I believed that procrastination was just one of my many flaws. Everyone else around me seemed to be so focused and determined — when things needed to get done, they got done. I so admired these people. But as I grew older, my relationship with procrastination matured — I began to understand that things were actually not that simple. I even found a structure underlying my relationship to procrastination.

The first phase was, as suggested above, one of self-loathing. You think of yourself as lazy, stupid and spineless. You see yourself surrounded by determined go-getters but somehow you just cannot get yourself to be as organised as them.

But a little close observation can lead to the second phase: awareness. You realise most people share the vice of procrastination but have developed techniques to make their indecision and inaction appear to be wise and thoughtful. Typically this is done by saying things like: I better wait until I have more information; I wish to consult with colleagues, family members or friends; or I need time to weigh out different options.

Next comes the phase of epiphany. Once you become aware that you are surrounded by procrastinators, it starts to dawn on you that procrastination may actually have some advantages. Both us writers have worked in large organisations and one of the phenomena we observed was that many problems tend to solve themselves. Team members, or superiors, would ask us to solve some problem. Being serial procrastinators, we would take our time, weighing the pros and cons of the matter, consulting relevant — or irrelevant — documentation, speaking with other colleagues and generally reflecting on the matter. However, once we were ready with a well thought out solution, to our surprise the original issue often no longer existed. It had solved itself! It seemed that most problems could be solved by sympathetic listening, along with some mediation and facilitation. Once we had done that, we just had to wait for people’s common sense to take over. The eureka! moment was the realisation that procrastination can often be beneficial; that 90% of problems tend to solve themselves; and that strong and determined action can be extremely harmful and disruptive in most situations.

The fourth phase may be termed as a redefinition of value. This means that you no longer view procrastination as a vice or a weakness, but as a virtue. This realiaation came when reading the obituary of Paul Volker, the former head of the US Federal Reserve who died at the age of 92 after a stellar career in finance and banking. One of his obituaries said that among his favourite mottos was “procrastinate and flourish”. Apparently, Volker believed that, when facing problematic situations, one must take one’s time, reflect, weigh options, and allow the brain to work in a chaotic and creative way rather than in a well-directed, focused and systematic problem-solving mode. It is not a vice to indulge in procrastination and it could in fact be a wise thing to do when facing big decisions.

Once you get rid of your guilt, you will be free to ride the wave of procrastination and watch the dawning of the phase of strategic wisdom. You understand that there are different types of decisions and you learn how to distinguish between them. In some cases, it is good to take time and put off decision making as long as possible. In other situations, this is just a self-sabotaging, lazy or paralysing thing to do. Generally, when a decision is important and not easily reversible, it is better to wait as much as possible. Either the problem will solve itself, or we will have had more time to reflect, consult with others, or gather more information. For example, when it comes to a big expense, professional decisions or, most importantly, interpersonal relationships, the more you procrastinate the better.

But this leaves other innumerable situations in your daily life that you could just get on with pretty quickly. While not wishing to provide a vade mecum, we would like to mention a few techniques that could make you more of a doer in such situations. One that works well for us is to communicate our intentions to others. In that way, social pressure and guilt will, hopefully, make you a doer. Another one could be to pressurise yourself by setting deadlines, accompanied by many reminders in your diary or your smart-phone, or by sticking post-its on your refrigerator.

But here is the most effective and intelligent way to get past your procrastination: when you find yourself incapable of making a decision or getting a task done (call it task 1), try to occupy your mind with an even bigger decision or even more challenging goal (call it task 2). Quite clearly, you will feel a strong urge to push back the bigger problem (task 2), and in order to waste some time before having to face it, you will eventually get the smaller task (task 1) done. You may have to read this a few more times but it’s worth doing. In order to avoid having to face the bigger challenge, your mind will find relief in solving the other smaller things you have to get done. Don’t dismiss this idea until you’ve tried it. If only we could patent it, we would become millionaires — but we will figure out how to do that later.