I am a world-champion procrastinator. Anything that has a deadline will be started only at the shortest possible time before it's due and when a half-way decent job is still achievable.
I have beaten myself up over it, and surprise surprise, so have my friends, family, and anyone who had to live through a few hours of me frantically trying to finish the job/assignment/whatever on time.
Oh, and I'm 43 - an old hand really. You'd think that by now I'd "have grown up" and picked up good habits etc.
Well here comes the crunch: I'm actually convinced that procrastination serves a purpose. Otherwise those with the gene (it MUST be genetic - at least that's my excuse) would have died out - "oh, I'll feed my baby later, once I've finished thinking about how I might hunt down that mammoth".
The thing is, when I do procrastinate, I will think about what I have to do. In detail. Mapping it out. The problem will be thought through and the different options explored, down to what could go wrong and what are the alternatives.
So whilst I'm seen to do nothing about the job at hand, my mind is actually processing it in the background. Quite efficiently it seems.
Because by time the deadline looms, and I have to sit down to actually do the job, I somehow know exactly what needs to be done, in what order, where to look for research, and what words to use if the job is about writing.
So maybe procrastination is not laziness, or lack of willpower. Maybe it's just a different form of preparation.
P.S. Unfortunately none of this applies to procrastinating about going to sleep.
Hello insomnia!
I have beaten myself up over it, and surprise surprise, so have my friends, family, and anyone who had to live through a few hours of me frantically trying to finish the job/assignment/whatever on time.
Oh, and I'm 43 - an old hand really. You'd think that by now I'd "have grown up" and picked up good habits etc.
Well here comes the crunch: I'm actually convinced that procrastination serves a purpose. Otherwise those with the gene (it MUST be genetic - at least that's my excuse) would have died out - "oh, I'll feed my baby later, once I've finished thinking about how I might hunt down that mammoth".
The thing is, when I do procrastinate, I will think about what I have to do. In detail. Mapping it out. The problem will be thought through and the different options explored, down to what could go wrong and what are the alternatives.
So whilst I'm seen to do nothing about the job at hand, my mind is actually processing it in the background. Quite efficiently it seems.
Because by time the deadline looms, and I have to sit down to actually do the job, I somehow know exactly what needs to be done, in what order, where to look for research, and what words to use if the job is about writing.
So maybe procrastination is not laziness, or lack of willpower. Maybe it's just a different form of preparation.
P.S. Unfortunately none of this applies to procrastinating about going to sleep.
Hello insomnia!