6 awesome ways, procrastinating can make you smarter and productive.
Here are some benefits of procrastination that are just too good for anticipators:
1. It makes us smarter enough to find new ways to solve problems.
When it comes to last second, we always find better ways to solve problems. Our solutions may not be very qualitative but they did not took a very large time to complete, so justified! We can always improve the quality later on.
Optimize as you face glitches, premature optimization is bad and wastage of time.
( IDK if that’s true but once Bill Gates told in an interview that I will hire a lazy person because he will find smarter ways to solve problems, interesting!)
2. It gives us the OPPORTUNITY to CHANNELIZE our ENERGY at some BETTER PLACE
If you procrastinate anything, that means it’s not very urgent right now or you are not interested to do it right now.
This helps us to do better, interesting things at that time. Since we like doing these things we are always using our energy at things of our interest only.
3. It gives us energy and motivation to do things faster.
If we are procrastinating the monotonous things, just think how much interesting stuff we have in our daily life.
Mind you, we are spending the majority of our time on interesting tasks. Therefore we are always motivated and full-on energy, because we are working on something aligned to our interest areas.
4. It gives me a focused mindset
When I leave things to last minute, I am always* constantly thinking about that thing. I am always focused and not getting distracted by any phone calls, meeting invites or WhatsApp texts.
*always is that last minute :-P
For that minimum time, I am very focused on the solution because
Not being able to complete on time brings fear, that fear becomes motivation, the motivation gives you the energy, which becomes efficiency and efficiency results into wonders which leave your competitors amazed.
Well done! All the best :+1:
Procrastination is using fear as a motivator.
5. It gives me confidence and I think everything is achievable.
When I do such challenges in no time, I get appreciation and that appreciation boosts in a lot of confidence in me.
I feel like I will leave no stone unturned and I am always ready for the challenging assignments in any walk of life.
6. You may not need to do the task later at all
This is the best one
When you procrastinate boring things, who knows you don’t even ask to do that later on. Makes sense?
For example, you are told to prepare a future sales plan for your African customers. You lingered it down to a few weeks and then suddenly your senior informs you,
“don’t prepare that report as we are closing operations in Africa countries”
For a procrastinator, it is like a dream come true. ;-)
WHEN PROCRASTINATION IS A PROBLEM
There should be a very good balance between procrastination and anticipation and you should be mature enough to create that balance.
Why am I saying that?
Because procrastination and quality are inversely proportional.
If you procrastinate, you will always end up with the lower quality of your work and vice versa.
You should always have a process running at the back of your head which tells you the importance of the task.
Depending on the importance of the task, you should decide whether it demands your immediate attention or not.
If not, procrastinate it else finish it with the same smarter and creative way.
You can procrastinate if you are confident of the task and you have done it in the past too. When you are sure that you can complete it with the same efficiency in lesser time too.
On the other hand,
If you are working on something new, or big project or maybe usual thing but for very senior people this time. I suggest don’t procrastinate it and finish it in well-defined timelines. This will give you enough time to make final changes and prepare for the presentation as well. It also gives you ample time to handle spikes that come across when doing that task, so starting early will not affect your final outcome.
How can I decide what’s important right now?
We all know 80–20 rule, right?
80% of stress comes from that 20% of work you left for the last.
A very interesting demonstration for the priorities of the work is as below :
The above is for procrastinators but if you want to be on a plan follow this way :
1. Urgent is something like, fixing your car’s flat tyre immediately or you won’t be able to commute for office tomorrow.
2. Important means, Getting the break shoes of car tight so you do not meet with an accident.
Important is not urgent but urgent is always the most important ;-)
To plan your life and day to day work, put everything you have to do in the above matrix and then decide.
I have framed some examples below, please follow them to align your tasks in the matrix.
Q1 (Important and Urgent)
Do the things that fall in Q1 at the first place, as they are most urgent and important too.
Like fixing flat tyre of the car (sorry for repeated example, but this will help to relate better)
Q2 (Important but not Urgent)
You can defer them, but not for long.
Like start brushing two times a day, it is important for your teeth but not urgent.
Q3 (not Important but Urgent)
You should not defer them as they are urgent but always give priority to Q1 first.
Like If your childhood friend visited your city, to meet him may not be important but to welcome him to the new city is urgent.
So you should definitely address him and welcome him. But if your wife is pregnant and is in Hospital (Q1) then address your wife first. (sorry for emotional example)
Q4 (not Important, not Urgent)
You can always defer them as they demand the least attention of yours.
Like taking your kids to the playground in the evening, someday when you got late from office.
Although you should take them out regularly because it is important in the longer run to improve their personality.
Quotes :
- “Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the ‘someday I’ll’ philosophy.”
- Denis Waitley - Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot of fun until you get the bill
