So if procrastination isn’t a bad thing and instead is just a value judgement made by anally-retentive over-achievers (see yesterday’s blog) then it is something to be celebrated.
Before we actually get around to creating National Procrastinator’s Day, maybe we should focus on how to become better procrastinators. Here then are five easy steps to save time and effort by becoming a better procrastinator:
- When someone else gives you a task to do along with a deadline, ask them if they really really need it by the deadline date or whether it is an artificial date. Try to get that deadline extended.
- After a few days have gone by, ask a bunch of really tough questions that will make the other person think hard and take a while to answer. This makes the other person think that you’re really getting at it and at the same time it can cut down what you need to do or potentially delay completion even more.
- Let the task roll around in your head for a while, all the time thinking about what is the least amount of work you can do to get the task done. Ask more questions to seem busy and try to reduce the task or eliminate it.
- Once you have figured out the absolute minimum amount of work needed (see blog on Perfectionism) then figure out the absolutely latest time possible that you can start the task.
- Once that time has past, get down to and rescue victory from the jaws of defeat by doing even less work than you thought you needed to do and pulling off a miracle to complete the task on time.
Now you may think I’m joking about this but I’m being perfectly serious. A lot of us spend too much time doing things that don’t need to be done or spending too much time on things of little value.
The great thing about procrastination is that it can be used as a tool to avoid doing the unnecessary and reducing time on the unimportant.
Hi Charles,
I loved your previous Blog about unproductive people being indifferent, while performers beat themselves up about procrastinating.
But I am less sure about today’s prescription. Do you think your 5 steps are effective for Steven Covey’s (First Things First) Important but not Urgent tasks? (I think they are ideal for unimportant tasks, when we are too polite to say No.)
Cheers, and thanks always for being provocative.
I absolutely believe that the Procrastination Principles work for important but not urgent tasks. They work as long as you eventually do these things and not if procrastination means they never get done.
With important things, delaying until they are really needed may result in;
Important things becoming unimportant.
Better perspective and knowledge with time.
Block to having to get everything perfect.
Time optimization.
I could have written the blog a little better but what I have found is that when things are started way before they are due, people spend more time on them than they should. They also re-do things multiple times to make them perfect and in the end, they don’t actually complete things early, just start them earlier.