Procrastination Can Be A Force For Good

I adore procrastination, though not for reasons others would consider endearing. When I’m coding, I can stare at my screen, sometimes for 10 minutes or more, doing absolutely nothing but turning the gargantuan task ahead of me (making a commercial video game) inside my mind like a dung beetle with a massive ball of, well, you get the idea. But what if you could find positives in your lack of work-doing?

Image: Trevor.

TechCrunch has an article up that highlights five ways in which procrastination can be a good thing. While you can read the whole piece now, I feel most of its points can be summed up in this snippet:

Listen. Your procrastination is telling you something. Maybe the idea you were working on is bad. I started a software project once that I was going to make into a company. But I kept doing everything BUT the software project.

Procrastination is your mind’s way of saying: “That bad! This good!” and puts your body at work on something you enjoy. Listen to it. Ask, why am I really procrastinating. Maybe I’m not calling the client back because I simply don’t like him.

If you’re a normally productive person, then there’s no reason to believe you’ve spontaneously lost your core motivation, or that your willpower is waning. A period of procrastination can be the the perfect time to analyse your situation, be it wondering if you’re in the right career, to realising the task at hand is too large or ambitious for a single person.

So, next time you’re working and you suddenly find yourself on Facebook or browsing random Wikipedia pages (at least, more often than usual), take a second to think why. You may just hit upon the inspiration or insight you need to get on with it.

Five Great Things About Procrastination [TechCrunch]


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