Procrastination Isn’t Always Bad!

There was a study conducted in 2011 and listed “career-limiting habits”. Procrastination was on the 3rd place behind unreliability and “that’s not my job”. I don’t think that procrastination is like unreliability, because sometimes it’s okay or even desirable to procrastinate. It’s a time management tool that helps us to sort out priorities. Procrastination is a problem when you don’t use it productively or when it becomes a mindless form of escape. For example, when you delay something because you are afraid of failure.

In general people used to think that procrastination is a bad habit. That’s why there are a lot of articles with techniques aimed to struggle with procrastinating.

But procrastination has a number of benefits. So how can procrastination be a useful thing for you? Read on to find out!

Procrastination And Creativity

Did you hear the term “sleep on it”? It means that when you’re in a bind or you’ve got a difficult problem to mull over, you should take a break and go to bed. In the morning you’ll be fresh to come up probably with the best answer.

But of course you can’t take a nap during your working day, so what can you do? Do something different for a bit and clear the head.

Procrastination will often involve taking in new information, even if it’s seemingly irrelevant. For example, memes are not just funny pictures, they help you to relax, refocus and shift your brain into another gear. And when you’re browsing articles on Medium.com, you may find something inspiring or useful for your work.

You Need to Take a Break

Procrastination gives you a break which is a good thing for your brain. Working for too long on a single task can cause health problems, such as stress, tiredness, backache, eye strain and so on. It influences the quality of your work. If you become more distracted, it can be your brain’s signals that you should have a break. Forcing yourself to work the whole day and eradicate procrastination may lead to a nervous collapse.

What’s The Problem?

If procrastination is useful, why do people want to kick this habit? The problem isn’t procrastination itself, but the time that you waste for surfing the Internet. So you may fall down in “the rabbit hole” and don’t realize how much time has passed. You should allow yourself to procrastinate but set an alarm, for example.

The Real Problem

We analyzed situations when procrastination isn’t so dangerous. But what should people do when they check Facebook and Twitter numerous times throughout the day? Science expert James Clear called it “digital procrastination”.

Clear explains, “Willpower is like a muscle.Every time you use a little bit of it — to resist going to Facebook or BuzzFeed or whatever it is — you’re flexing that muscle. By the end of the day…your willpower fades. This is why you find yourself binge eating at 9 p.m. or making some crazy online shopping purchase at 10 p.m.,” he continues. “You’re like, ‘Why do I do this now? I know this is a bad choice.’ It’s because your willpower has been drained throughout the day”.

There is a solution to this problem — blockers of social-media sites and any other site you want to block. James Clear thinks that people should train their willpower to avoid bad online habits.

Final Thoughts

Don’t try to eradicate procrastination from your workflow at all. When you realize that it’s okay, you can focus on your tasks more easily because procrastination won’t be a forbidden fruit anymore.

So did you change your mind about procrastination?