I’ve certainly had my battles with procrastination over the years. I’ve often seen it as a bad thing: the enemy of my productivity. A bad habit to rid myself of, and replace with more focus, more hustle. Sound familiar?
Procrastination is simply putting off, or delaying, something that we should be doing. When we think of procrastination we often see someone who has important work to do, or urgent deadlines looming, and they are doing anything possible to avoid doing the work. Think cat videos, a Netflix binge session, cleaning out the sock drawer …
But, what if I was to suggest that procrastination could be good for us?
I was recently reading, Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist, and he stated that it is good to “Take time to mess around. Get lost. Wander. You never know where it’s going to lead you.”
Kleon’s message is to practice productive procrastination and herein lies the key. Productive procrastination. Procrastination with a goal in mind. Procrastination that results in a positive outcome, rather than just wasting time.
It got me thinking. Too much of any one thing is usually not helpful. Too much food and we’re likely to gain weight. Too much exercise and we’re likely to injure ourselves. Too much work and we’re likely to burn out.
