How To Do That One Thing You Really Don’t Want To Do

What “biking it” really means.

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(Editor’s Note: This article appeared in Issue One of Pretty Decent, a free digital magazine for creative entrepreneurs. Click here to subscribe and grab your copy!)

I’m a notorious procrastinator.

I’ve been procrastinating my entire life. From the first project I can remember — building a robot for science fair in 3rd grade — to delivering on deadline now in my work as a content strategist, it’s hard to imagine a time when I didn’t put it all off until the last minute, creating enormous amounts of distress for both myself and the people around me. (Sorry, mom!)

There are a lot of theories on why we procrastinate, and most of them seem to have been designed to boost my ego. One such theory is that procrastinating makes us more creative. In a study by Jihae Shin, participants were asked to come up with new business ideas — some immediately, others after five minutes of playing Minesweeper or Solitaire. Independent reviewers rated the procrastinators’ ideas 28 percent more creative than those who got right down to it.

In a study, reviewers rated the ideas of those who played Minesweeper first 28 percent more creative than other participants who got right down to the task at hand. Image via Giphy.