☕️ saturday morning thoughts
☕️ saturday morning thoughts
the case for procrastination
Good morning all,
Happy Saturday.
As we have officially passed 10 editions of the newsletter, I decided to do something a bit different this week and write a longer-form piece on something I’ve been thinking about.
The Case for Procrastination
I think in North America it’s fairly well beaten into our heads that procrastination is a bad thing. It’s accepted that it leads to worse outcomes, poor performance, and heightens stress or anxiety. As such, there are countless articles, videos, and books on tips to stop procrastinating and “take control” of the work that has to be done.
And, by and large, there’s value in this message. However, I think this only views the issue from one angle. Concluding procrastination is outright bad is a blanket statement, one I believe to be false, as you’re inherently assuming every piece of work is important and should be a paramount priority in one’s life. In other words, all work is equal and requires the same effort and attention.
I use to believe that for every task in my life I wanted to operate in “Quadrant 2”. This is based on a time-management diagram Stephen Covey popularized in his best-selling book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”.
Mr. Covey theorized that by continually working on things that were important but not highly urgent (“Quadrant 2”) you can reduce the likelihood of being thrown into “Quadrant 1” where people often feel stressed and rush around working on important tasks that need to be done this instant (not a lot of fun).
My logical conclusion, as an eager university student, was to develop an overactive Type A attitude to place myself permanently in Quadrant 2. I figured I could reduce stress while achieving better outcomes by working on anything that came across my desk right away. And, as such, I fell into a pattern of feeling a “sense of urgency” about work that didn’t need to be done for weeks.
By and large, this conclusion was correct. I was able to do really well on projects in school and felt less stressed, as I was always making progress on tasks that needed to be done and deadlines were relatively easy to meet.
So, you may ask, what’s the problem then with this strategy?
Here’s when we introduce something called Parkinson’s Law, which states: “work will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion”.
The problem is that by prioritizing work and eliminating procrastination you can fill your life with work, to the point where there’s no time for relaxation or time spent on other things.
There will always be more work to do. Tweaks to a speech, double-checking numbers on a project, or finding more sales leads. If you want to fill your life with work, it’s not that hard.
So where do the benefits of procrastination come in? They come from the magic of an imminent deadline. If you only have 24 hours to complete a task, the time pressure forces you to focus only on execution and the essential things that need to be done.
Procrastination, in this sense, forces you to use the 80/20 Rule, deriving 80% of the results from only 20% of the effort. In this sense, procrastination can be leveraged as a mechanism that forces you to focus only on what is essential.
On the other hand, operating in Quadrant 2 makes you (by definition) less effective.
To put it into real life, if I have a history paper due in two weeks, having a Quadrant 2 mindset would suggest I start working on it this instant and spend 50 hours to finish the paper. Meanwhile missing going to the movies with friends and getting in a workout each day. Let’s say following this plan I get a 95% on my paper (life changer).
However, in the second case, I realize Parkinson’s Law exists and want to use the 80/20 Principle to my advantage. I start my paper 24 hours before it’s due and spend 10 hours on it. Suppose I write an average paper and get an 80% (although I’ve also gotten poor grades from trying too hard and add so much complexity to the point the result is worse).
For a percentage to time ratio, I’m adding 1.9% to my grade for every hour of work in the first case, but 8% in the second case. I’d be over 4x more effective on a result-to-time basis by procrastinating.
Never mind my improved mental and physical health from the 40 hours I gained over the last two weeks that I could use to spend more time with friends or family, exercise, or relax.
Seems all well and good, you may think, but sometimes there is important work where an 80% isn’t good enough.
The skill then becomes learning to be an essentialist – learning what matters and is worth operating in Quadrant 2 for (at the knowledge you’re less effective) and what doesn’t matter and you can procrastinate.
By being able to disaggregate the important versus the unimportant, focusing your efforts on the former and accepting mediocre results on the latter, you will save time that you can invest into more important things. Because, frankly, there are a lot more important things.
And that’s a skill I think everyone can work on in many aspects of their life – becoming an essentialist. As Greg McKeown says, in his book “Essentialism”:
Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.
All in all, the message is that sometimes it doesn’t hurt to procrastinate a bit. Procrastination is not outright bad as we may have been told.
Not every piece of work is important and should command your complete effort and energy. You don’t need to do the best at everything, only those few essential things in your life.
Be kind to yourself.
Have a wonderful weekend, all.
Much love to you and yours,
Thomas