Thoughts From A Procrastination Expert

I accomplish a whole lot of things when I’m procrastinating. So much so that I feel like a little procrastination is good for my productivity. I get the laundry done, clean whole rooms in the house, or take the dog for an extra long walk. I’ll invent some reason to bake something for someone, or I’ll start a new project.

Yes, when I’m procrastinating, I get an impressive number of things done. I simply never get around to whatever work it is that I’m avoiding. Until I have to, of course.

If there is a real deadline, then eventually the procrastination period of a project has to end. There will come a point where you need to stop delaying the work. The college essay, the important proposal for your boss, the brownies you said you’d make for the bake sale this coming weekend.

Deadlines and other people’s expectations mean you either get the work done or you become unreliable. And how many times can you let other people down before they stop believing in your word? How many missed deadlines at work does it take to cost you your job? I’ve never wanted to find out the answers to those questions.

But what about when there isn’t really a deadline? What about when getting the work done only matters to you? When it’s your dream, your project, and only your expectations that you’ll get it done. What happens then?

Once the work is complete, it might matter to other people. That depends on if you’re planning to share whatever it is you’ve been working on, or if this particular project is solely for you. Either way, you won’t know until you actually put in the time and energy to finish your work. You won’t know until you stop finding reasons to procrastinate.

Actually, inventing reasons to procrastinate is more like it. At least that’s what I do. When I want to avoid doing something specific, I have a knack for finding an endless list of other productive ways to spend my time. It’s great for my checking-boxes-on-a-to-do-list-task-manager side. It’s just less great for my let’s-take-a-risk-on-this-and-see-what-happens vulnerable side.

There is some science that procrastinating at the right point of a project can improve your work. Starting something and then stepping away to give yourself time to mull over all the possibilities can be a good thing. As long as you come back to the work. As long as your stepping away for a few days doesn’t become stepping away forever.

With most things I dilly-dally through, I can rely on the discipline of my routines to pull me back to the work after only a few days off. But with some things, not so much. It depends on why the project doesn’t have a deadline.

If the project is deadline-less because it’s an ongoing process of improvement, that’s easier for me. The work feels less daunting because there isn’t a true endpoint. Some projects are about always continuing to get better. They are a cumulative result of every time you show up and put in the effort. Each experimental bake makes you a better baker. Each workout that pushes you out of your comfort zone incrementally improves your fitness.

It’s the projects that have endpoints but no deadline that I struggle with the most. Sometimes I put my own deadline on these projects to try motivating myself to get back to work. But the self-imposed deadlines often pass without consequence. My work remains stalled wherever I last left it, waiting for me to come back when I’m ready.

And that’s precisely it. I stall out on projects with my expert-level procrastination when I’m not ready to face the next endpoint. I struggle when there are true checkpoints of progress, levels to finish before completing the game. Because what if the next level proves to be too difficult for me? What if starting the next level proves that I have no business playing the game I’ve decided I care about?

Safe and easy is safe and easy for a reason. And it is certainly easier to stay where you feel safe and accomplished. It’s more comfortable to keep playing the level where you know what’s coming next than to venture into something new. Because facing something new means you may or may not have the skills to handle it. Yet.

You might, or you might not, have the experience you need to succeed at the new thing on your first try. But you won’t know until you take those steps forward, however hesitant those steps may be. To keep going forward you need to face the next level, and probably fail at least once. You won’t find out if you have the skills you need until you ask yourself to use them.

So on these projects, I wait until I’m ready to face the possibility of failure. Until I know that having to dust myself off after falling down a few times won’t motivate me to abandon my pursuit. It isn’t a ready because I have the skills and confidence feeling. It’s more a ready because I know forging ahead matters to me feeling. And until then, I’m sure I’ll continue checking off nearly everything else each week on my to-do list.