Friday Feature: The Pros of Procrastination

Several years ago, I read a great little book on procrastination. I found it quite by accident in a local independent bookstore and I re-read (and re-investigate) its first chapter every year in my first year seminar. It's not a self-help book (though it is classified as such on Amazon), nor is it filled with recriminations. Instead, it describes what the author, philosopher John Perry, dubs "structured procrastination."

I can identify. In fact, I'm doing just that right now. I planned to read a few of the papers I have to grade (for those same first year seminar students) before I left for class this morning, but instead, I am writing this blog post. Both need to be done, but instead of doing the thing I planned to do (or was supposed to do, if you will), I'm doing something else. I'm not procrastinating by watching TV or taking a nap (although I do those things, too); I'm simply avoiding doing one thing by doing another. It feels virtuous, in a way, because I'm accomplishing something.

It's just not the thing I was supposed to be accomplishing at the time.

A recent study revealed a difference between the brains of procrastinators and the brains of doers. Put simply, we (procrastinators) have a different relationship with risk, fear and emotion than doers do, something that the researchers have attributed to differences in the volume and relationship between certain brain structures.

If that's true, structured procrastination makes a lot of sense. We put off doing less desirable tasks in order to do more desirable tasks because emotion plays a bigger role in our decisions. Case in point: I'd rather write this blog post than grade those papers so, here I am! Still, finishing this will be rewarding for me because then it will be posted and I can check it off my list. Not so for those papers; in the time I have before class, I'll only get through two or three. I can make a dent, but not complete the task.

Do you procrastinate? (Don't be embarrassed if your answer is yes -- I firmly believe that everyone procrastinates some time). While Perry's book won't provide a lot of advice on how to stop being a structured procrastinator, there are plenty of resources that will. This article by psychotherapist Jude Bijou offers eight steps for conquering procrastination and, considering the source, it's not surprising that she takes feelings into consideration.

Personally, I don't see procrastination as a bad thing, unless it interferes with meeting deadlines and accomplishing important tasks, or if causes so much stress that it interferes with someone's mental health. On numerous occasions, my procrastination has actually been beneficial, allowing ideas to simmer while I worked on something else, or giving me the opportunity to enjoy someone's company instead of keeping my nose to the grindstone. Sure, it's important to get things done, but balance is important, too, and sometimes, following the path of procrastination can leads us to some unexpectedly good places.

Procrastination Pays

I just finished reading a great little book -- one that was part of my last book splurge at Hearts and Minds. Entitled The Art of Procrastination, it's a fun little read by John Perry, an emeritus professor of philosophy at Stanford. Yes, I know the two halves of that last sentence don't sound as if they belong together (one of these things is not like the other?), but I'm not making this up. And, as evidence, I submit the subtitle of the book: "A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing."

Dr. Perry's first chapter began life as an essay -- one that won the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in Literature. Before purchasing the book, I stood in Hearts and Minds and read a good chunk of that chapter, and that's what sold me on the book. After I brought it home, I set it aside, picking it up now and then to nibble at it a chapter at a time before finishing it all in one big bite this morning. No, I did not put off reading it; I merely savored it.

Dr. Perry doesn't extol the virtues of procrastination, except in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. Throughout the book, he points out that lots of procrastinators accomplish quite a bit, much of it while they're doing something else, (a.k.a something besides what they're supposed to be doing). He intertwines his philosophy on the life of a procrastinator with strategies and, true to his education roots, a disclaimer that he's not recommending procrastination as a lifestyle, merely pointing out that we're not all lazy lollygaggers who put things off to the point that we never accomplish anything.

If you're a procrastinator (especially a "structured procrastinator," as Dr. Perry has dubbed himself), you'll laugh out loud at this book. If you know (or live with) a procrastinator, you'll either chuckle, or grow increasingly annoyed (see chapter nine) as you read this book. Or, perhaps you'll do both.

The timing of my reading is a bit ironic. I read two chapters last night before going to sleep, then finished this book this morning -- after spending much of the day yesterday putting off doing a project at the top of my list. I picked up the book last night in part because it related to the project I was working on, which is also part of what compelled me to finish the book this morning. By the time I finished it, I'd mentally written half of this blog and had begun coming up with new ideas for a class I'm proposing.

And my project? I finished it. Before I finished reading the book.

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