Why procrastination is good for you

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Why-Procrastination-is-Good-for-You-162358476.html

by ValentineC • 14 years ago

37 7 14 years ago

chimi• 14 years ago

After first reading about the benefits of procrastination a year or two ago, I made a conscious effort to delay decisions and actions that previously seemed to need immediate resolution. I found that I rarely encountered a situation that I delayed action on, even when it felt like I needed to act immediately, that ended up being a mistake to delay.

Since then, I have noticed countless examples where delaying action benefited me. I have wanted to implement features in my software that I knew would take a long time and much concentration, but wanted, only to stumble upon an open source library or tutorial or new standard in the browser that made it easily. These include jsPlumb, jsdiff, encryption algorithms, and more.

There are also other countless times that I have acted too quickly. Writing code to generate images to create rounded borders that are now handled natively via CSS's border-radius. Lots of jQuery functionality, ajax and more.

The point is, it really does help to procrastinate. It's not just lip service. I have extrapolated this to really move away from deadlines. All deadlines have either already passed or do not need to be met. I create no deadlines for myself. I leave to the universe more deadlines -- working on other people's schedules or those set by the weather.

I have found myself much more at peace. I live a better life now and am a lot happier since I stopped rushing through everything. As I look back on my life, I tried to move deadlines forward, get out of classes, pass milestones quicker and so many times I remember whatever task it was I wanted to hurry through taking longer than had I just gone at the regular pace.

Procrastinate. It's good for life.

mnutt2• 14 years ago

The problem I see with this is that humans are really bad at estimating how long tasks are to complete. So while perhaps procrastination isn't inherently bad, in the world of poor estimation it means things don't get done on time.

te_chris• 14 years ago

"don't get done on time"

What is "on time"? If things aren't getting done on time surely that is at least partly the fault of imperfect estimation practices.

mnutt2• 14 years ago

"On time" would be any externally imposed deadline, and I would say it's completely the fault of imperfect estimation practices.

If we could estimate perfectly, then deferring all work until it needed would be uniformly good. But many times the true size of the work is unknown and we procrastinate on estimating, and we only figure out how much work is involved until it's too late.

dictum• 14 years ago

I have a love/hate relationship with books that capitalize on a counterintuitive notion, and that includes Malcolm Gladwell, mentioned in the article. While they're good reminders that many societal preconceptions are incorrect, too often they just replace one misconception with another.

Procrastination is not good. Procrastination is not bad. It's a question of when and why. Perhaps intentional procrastination on some tasks and plans is good, but when you procrastinate on everything, things don't magically become better and you don't get any special insight: you just stop doing what you wanted to do, and over time you end up lagging behind people who don't share your love for procrastination.

Not all advice is good for all people. For entrepreneurs, procrastination is a terrible suggestion. In a small business, if you don't go after opportunities, you may forget about them; they won't come for you. Of course, a good entrepreneur should distinguish between a worthwhile endeavor and a dead end... but someone who adopts procrastination as a principle will leave the trouble of distinguishing between work that's worth doing and work that isn't for tomorrow.

A bad idea doesn't become better when you decide to sit on it and only implement it a few months later. A better advice would be: stop having bad ideas, and shoot dead a bad idea when you see one. This is hard work, and hard work doesn't get done when you procrastinate.

Mordio• 14 years ago

Some days are so hectic you have no time to procrastinate.

kqr2• 14 years ago

"Structured procrastination" is another attempt to use procrastination in a positive way:

http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/

It utilizes the principle:

  ...anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't 
  the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.

Robert Benchley, in Chips off the Old Benchley, 1949

Why procrastination is good for you

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