Procrastinate Later
As a business consultant and life coach, I’m struck with how often I field questions about the problem of procrastination—or more specifically how to overcome it. This seems to be a huge concern for people at every stage of personal development.
The responses touch obvious bases: Take small steps; don’t expect perfection; find an accountability partner. But recently another thought crossed my mind. Why not make the tendency to put things off work in our favor? Let’s procrastinate later!
Want to check your social media feed instead of writing that proposal? No problem. You can scroll through the app later, after you hit “Send.” Been meaning to clean the garage, but reruns of Judge Judy feel so enticing? Record the shows and watch them later. Planning to start eating healthy as soon as the potato chips are gone? The chips will be there later, and might have gotten stale and lost their appeal by then. You get the idea.
Sure, it’s a gimmick, it’s a little goofy, and it doesn’t address every situation in which we’re tempted to delay the important while we succumb to the trivial. But it’s worth a try. And simply knowing you’ve set aside time to procrastinate once the more critical tasks are done may provide the comfort and motivation you need to move in the right direction.
Here’s a confession. There’s a video I’d like to watch which supposedly reveals the secrets of a famous magician. I had to choose between that or writing this brief article. The article won out for now. I’ll get around to the video eventually. Maybe tomorrow.
