Procrastination

The subtle art of wasting time

🏷️ Categories: Time management, Procrastination, Personal stories

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The irony of the matter is that I am writing this at the last minute.

I like to be methodical and follow deadlines so that I always have the draft letter structured in advance. But here I am, somewhat hastily writing my thoughts for today's letter. That's why I had to talk about procrastination, the subtle art of consciously wasting time.

No one is spared from this one.

I try to use my time intentionally and although I could say that I am effective, it happens to me what happens to everyone, that sometimes I get tangled up and postpone for one reason or another what I should be doing only to then go rushing.

Why is that?

Why do we postpone the inevitable if we know it will be worse later?

What is procrastination

First of all, procrastination and laziness are not the same thing.

While laziness implies a lack of motivation to do something, procrastination is the postponement of tasks, even when we know that postponing them is detrimental to us. It often happens that we prefer instant gratification over long-term rewards (Steel, 2011). The funny thing is that we then feel guilt about what we did.

This is not new, it is human. Greek philosophers called it akrasia.

Aristotle defined akrasia as the situation in which a person acts against his or her better judgment because of lack of self-control. Plato and Socrates said in the Protagoras that this happened when the force of desire overcame that of reason. The antonym is enkrateia (self-control). Procrastination is then the internal struggle of forces between what we should do and what we feel like doing.

In laziness there is no force, in procrastination there is a struggle of forces.

My relationship with procrastination

Procrastination and I met in college.

Despite procrastinating at this stage, I didn't get bad grades; on the contrary, I was one of the top students in the class. But this didn't get me out of procrastinating, except that I did it in an unconventional and... effective way?

Let's call it “indirect procrastination.”

Notice one detail, the procrastinator can be hardworking and do many tasks on his list, as long as they are not the tasks he should be doing. That is, he focuses on what he wants and postpones the duties (Perry, 2012).

That is the peculiar way of procrastinating that I learned in my college years.

Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

While some classmates would end up exhausted from studying and procrastinate the next day with a series or something similar, I procrastinated in a roundabout way. For example, if I had to study for an exam and one day I didn't feel like it, instead of watching the day go by without doing anything, I did secondary tasks that I felt more like doing, such as organizing my notes, making outlines, or cleaning my room.

These activities, while useful, this was a way to take a break from obligation.

I couldn't go a day without doing anything, deadlines at the university were tight, but every day I wasn't ready to give 100% to studying. That is indirect procrastination, a way to take advantage of bad days to make progress anyway.

It is only possible if you love what you do, otherwise, no task will ever be appetizing.

How not to get carried away

There are environments that encourage procrastination. Education is one of them.

Content is taught for months and then it is all dumped on a specific day months away from the first class you gave. Exams and projects are like that. —"There's still a lot of time left, I'll start another day," we often say.

In the end you spend the night before the exam studying desperately.

You procrastinate until the date is so close that the only option is to study to avoid imminent failure. Note the difference, some will be motivated by the good habit they have of studying daily, others will be motivated by the fear of failing. The classical Greeks would say that we suffer from akrasia, but what we want is to achieve enkrateia. That is, we want reason to overcome desire and do what we don't feel like doing.

Some techniques can help us depending on our case:

• Action triggers: Use a prior commitment. If you want to start going to the gym, pay the whole year's fee in advance. If you don't go, you'll be throwing away a lot of money. Another way is to give your best friend €50 and not have him pay you back until you've gone to the gym 30 days in a row. These are ways of bringing back to the present the same feeling that made us study to avoid a greater evil.

• Start imperfectly: There are those who procrastinate saying that they are waiting for a better moment. The problem is that that moment never comes. If you want to run, start by running for 10 minutes, and if you can't, walk. I've already said it once, imperfect beginnings are the perfect way to start. You don't need to run for 1 hour a day to get motivated to start exercising.

• Procrastinate indirectly: No one is always at 100%, if today is not your best day and the deadline is near, don't waste the whole day doing nothing. Instead, opt for more enjoyable tasks that also make you move forward.

  • If you're feeling down today but have to finish a project soon, do secondary tasks like improving the wording of your report or preparing the presentation you're going to give.

  • If you should go to the gym today but you have no energy left, exercise at home or simply go for a run for a while to keep up the habit.

• Create the necessary habit: If the tasks are always the same type, it will be as simple as creating a habit that reduces the friction of starting, that initial laziness before getting going. To do this, you can use the Seinfeld method. The idea is to create an environment that encourages the repetition of a task to the point that it becomes natural and we no longer feel that initial heaviness.

It all comes down to living in enkrateia and not in akrasia.

We all procrastinate and it's normal. The problem is when this akrasia dominates a large part of our life.

✍️ It's your turn: When do you tend to procrastinate the most? Me after lunch.

💭 Quote of the day: “Sometimes it's okay to put off a job for another day.” The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

See you next time! I'm off to read, I don't feel like writing anymore 👋.

References 📚

1. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics.

2. Steel, P. (2010). The procrastination equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done. Harper Collins.

3. Plato. Protagoras.

4. Perry, J. (2012). The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing. Workman Publishing.