Lazy bones

What are you doing? Are you being productive? I think not. Looking up random blogs from some person who is known for being a ridiculous human being is not perhaps the best use of your time. You could of course, be writing that report, or washing the dishes, or going for a run. But no, you still sit here reading this...

...are you still there?

Oh, OK then, well, let's talk about you...

“. . . anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.” — Robert Benchley

The key idea of procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganise their files or DVD collection when they get around to actually doing it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him/her to do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

It's no surprise that apartments of the 'structured procrastinator' tend to look cleaner and tidier nearing exam and essay submission deadlines – dishes washed, clothes ironed, hallways vacuumed and cutlery sorted in size order in drawers. At the back of the mind of the procrastinator are a list of things he/she should be getting on with, and it's often dependent on the ease of the job that the priorities come about. When you have deadlines it forces the procrastinator to review this list and that's when tasks which were down in the second digits in the list come up to the fore. Because of the need to do the task at-hand comes closer, the re-evaluation of the list comes up more frequently till the procrastinator essentially run out of minor tasks to get on with (though there really is no end to these) or the deadline gets to the point that unless he/she scribbles even the most rushed piece of twaddle on the back of an envelope and runs towards the campus to hand it in, he/she wont be meeting the deadline and likely end up with the procrastinator sitting in a clean kitchen remarking on how they were tricked by their rebellious brain, weeping softly into folded tissue at their none grade.

"Never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well". --Mark Twain

So are there any benefits for the procrastinator?

• Procrastination uses fear as a motivator. As a deadline approaches, we fear the consequences of not getting it done on time. That fear releases adrenaline, a natural pain killer, and feeling less pain makes doing difficult or less desirable tasks easier. Energy is the strongest benefit of procrastination. Though, we must ensure that when the 'minor' jobs are done with we are not left spent to do do the task which is more pressing.

• Procrastination makes us focus better because it's a limited time. The recognition that there is a definitive lack of time drives us to focus intently on the job at-hand and also propels us to work faster.

• Makes other things seem easier in comparison – from the task you're putting off, all other tasks seem more manageable and even tax reports can seem like therapy in comparison.

• Procrastination lowers expectations. It does this because you know that when you are procrastinating you are putting off the task you were embroiled with. This in turn gives us lee-way to allow us the consolation that this might not be your best work. With the fact that you are spending the time towards the deadline in activities other than the ones which leads to achieving that deadline, then your expectations are altogether lowered due to the fact that you are not invested.

"Procrastination is a way of giving yourself permission not to do a perfect job, because usually a perfect job isn't required." John Perry (Stanford University)

• Short videos, songs, links, articles that are uplifting, inspiring or funny can boost your positive emotions and refill your tank. Essential in the turmoil of upsetting essays on your least favourite topic which requires more reading of brick-sized books with long titles and no diagrams than you'd wish on your worst enemy.

Interestingly, and counter-intuitively, perhaps the biggest mistake procrastinators do is to minimise their commitments in an attempt to quit procrastinating. You would think that if you minimised the sheer number of tasks to do, you would be left with a more direct lane towards doing the more important things. However, this only serves to put those useful 'structured' procrastination tasks aside in way for docile laziness; laying on a couch watching daytime TV till your mind goes numb.

John Perry said:

"If you put something like learning Chinese at the top of your list, every morning you will get up and try to figure out what else you can do instead of that, and you'll probably end up doing many productive things instead of learning Chinese."

It's all a matter of perspective. Now where's that Chinese dictionary?

Below is this funky chart. A chart made by someone who was procrastinating about procrastination, of which i am putting in my blog of procrastination whilst procrastinating. The many layers of distraction: