Procrastination: Good idea? Effective? No.

Breaking the myth of procrastination.

As I stared at the Microeconomics textbook in my dimly lit dorm room at 4AM, I finally came to a rather plain realisation: procrastination is a horrible idea. At least in this context. And this context is procrastination for things you aren’t already good at.

I used to be one of those people that thought that putting it off to the last minute increased my efficiency in hindsight, thus justifying my procrastination and general laziness. And sometimes it did work out, but only for the things that I was already good at.

You see, I personally thought the foolproof logic of “spend more time, get more results” was bullshit. I still kind of do, to some extent. If you spend more time wisely and efficiently, it will definitely be a success factor. However, if you just plainly put in the time in the literal sense, chances are, you probably won’t get to where you want to be.

But I want to talk about procrastinating things you aren’t already good at. I procrastinated studying for my US politics exam and that turned out relatively fine, but it wasn’t because I was some master at procrastination or some super effective study genius. It was because I already had a pretty good backup knowledge of US politics thus it didn’t require as much effort as, say, economics.

When we say procrastination is effective, we are talking about the motivating factor which is the fact that time is running low. It is a strong motivator. But that doesn’t make it effective. In fact, the pressure of it all may make you nervous and distract you from the actual goal.

But sometimes, it can be effective. When it is something you are already good at and/or something that requires creative channeling. If it’s something you’re already good at, that time constraint will give you an extra booster to shred your laziness (because we all know we need a kick sometimes) and not have a lot of negative consequences. If it’s something that requires creativity, I guess it’s more due to the fact that you can’t really gradually build up to it sometimes. More often than not, it just kind of happens. Personally, though, I wouldn’t call this procrastination.

Anyways, now it seems pretty clear that procrastination for things you aren’t good at is a terrible idea. But, believe it or not, we tend to procrastinate the thing that we are the worst at doing because that’s what we want to put off till the end. It’s a catch-22, so to say.

So how can we fix this?

I have been writing about self improvement even before I joined Medium and I just realised that there really isn’t a universal answer to this problem. Do you feel scammed? Do you feel like you’ve been clickbaited?

Well, sorry to tell you that this is probably as honest as I’m going to get. However, although I can’t give you the ultimate answer to solving the issue of human laziness, I can give you some tips based on my personal experience.

When I don’t want to do anything, I go outside. If I don’t want to go outside, I at least sit down at a desk. Because lying down on your bed or couch is just letting yourself be defeated by your own laziness.

Do something simple but not too simple. Writing an article on Medium is a nice way to get started. And slowly move into the tough things you don’t want to do.

And honestly, that’s all there is to it. I mean, things you don’t want to do will feel like chores anyways no matter how you approach it, and I say just tackle it. I tried doing absolutely nothing for a week and I felt just….empty. It wasn’t fulfilling nor liberating. It just felt kind of, well, empty.

When you feel like you’ve really fucked up, don’t just say fuck it and let it go. Do something and it will probably make you feel better. Like I wasted $96 because I didn’t study for the AP exam I was supposed to. The opportunity cost of me not studying was 96 dollars + my guilt for not doing so. But I did learn this valuable lesson and I will try my best to make use of this. I hope this helps others too.