Creative Procrastination
Excerpt from the unpublished book Lenses.
Working in an office, we have to deal with the expectations of bosses and co-workers. Our social and physical environments provide reminders of what needs to be done and when to do it.
Working at home, alone, it’s easy to procrastinate or to shuffle from one project to another, not making substantial progress on any of them. It sometimes takes an effort to motivate ourselves to get things done on time.
I use creative procrastination to overcome that difficulty.
At any given moment there are dozens of things that I could and should be doing. I make a list of them. I prioritize the items. I keep adding to that list.
Many times, the task that is most important to work on is something I don’t want to do right now. I’d rather do something else. So I work on that something else. It’s also on the list, and I’ll have to do it sooner later.
While doing that something else, I keep remembering the task I put off that I really should be doing. That feeling of guilt generates energy, motivating me to do the other task faster and better.
Sometimes the high priority task I’m avoiding is something that I can’t put off any longer. I need to start it pronto or I won’t be able to get it done on time and that failure could have serious consequences. In that case, I need to think of another task that I will eventuallly need to do and that is even more undesirable than the high priority one. I try to convince myself that that task is important and urgent. The more I think about the substitute task, the more the priority one doesn’t seem so bad; and I get to work on the priority one to put off having to do the substitute task.
Over time, we need to discover our natural rhythm, categorizing the things we need to do on a regular basis, and getting a feel for how often we get the urge to do such things. For instance, Web site updates, paying bills and keeping track of finances, cleaning the house or yard, and doing creative work. For me, the cycle is about a week. If I try to pay bills and balance my check book on a day when I feel like working on a creative project, that’s like pushing rocks uphill. Likewise, working on a creative project when my mind would prefer the relaxing tedium of a repetitive task, is laborious and unproductive. So I try to do the things I need to do when it feels natural to do them, modulating that with creative procrastination, as described above.
Once we find our natural rhythm, we need to schedule, loosely. For instance, say my rhythm is a week or two and one of the chores is finances. In that case, I would aim to deal with finances on the same day every week and try to make that a habit. But if the right mood isn’t there that day or something else comes up, I don’t worry about it. Over the course of a week or two, I should be able to cover what needs to be covered, by just following my natural inclinations. And since I’m doing this work when I’m in the right frame of mind, I’m able to work faster and better.
If there is some regularly recurring task that needs to get done but that I never have the urge to do it, even using creative procrastination; then I try to make adjustments so it’s no longer necessary or else hire someone else to do it. I am who I am. Why fight it?
