Writing this comment it's not an errand. I was going to search for a therapist when somehow occured me that i could help myself whithin internet. I searched for some feelings i had and finished on Procrastination link on wikipedia. That was happening to me. I always was a good boy, with nice ideas, with nice realisdone and a lot of good objetives in mind. Then i started to work on "something big" with my girlfriend's dad. That was a good idea for a business and for a time, when i was developing it, everything was pretty good. All good until he pushed me for a work wich i thought wasn't necessary with four people without skills that i have to teach all i learnt and was learning. That was terrible for my creativity. Once the work of that anoying people was done i sent them back home. But now some inexplicable deadlines were set by "The Man". Now i face that i couldn't accept it, but somehow in that moment i was hit in the head. I lost a lot of time with the task i thought (and it was) useless, so i couldn't study enough to domine all the stuff i had to do. The pressure and the certain that i would never finish my work in time paralised me. I couldn't do anything, i thought i was dumb and with no capabilities. Fortunatly i started to fight and take my own destiny and what i thought was right and realy needed to be done.
And now i read this text, and it was so calming and refresh that was something like a faithul knight giving me a grail.
I don't know if you know the power of these words and how it can help someone desperate, but i can assure that it can save lifes, e.g. my own.
Thanks a lot. Please, never stop writing.
Have a nice day and take care.
AlexPyatetsky
· 10 months ago
Man, procrastination is something I've dealt with a lot in my life. Since 1st grade, my teachers told my parents, "Alex just isn't living up to his potential."
Despite my entrepreneurialism and some pretty big achievements for my age throughout college (organizing large festivals & front page worthy events, etc.), the majority of the time, I found myself almost crippled by my ADD fueled procrastination.
Fortunately, my good friend and fellow self improvement junkie, David Weisburd (great blog @ www.davidweisburd.com), introduced me to a book that completely changed my life, The Now Habit. In the Now Habit, procrastination is explained as a deep rooted & complex affliction, so I don't think this post really does justice to explaining it. Its causes are many and varied and understanding them has really helped me deal with my own issues. Fortunately, The Now Habit also offers a straightforward and fiercely effective set of tools to overcome it (more straight forward than GTD, imo).
I think your assessment of procrastination is flawed for 3 reasons.
1) You seem to suggest that people who get distracted by impressive projects only get distracted by one at a time. For entrepreneurs, this is simply not true. Dharmesh Shah at OnStartups wrote a great article about this, "Entrepeneurs and ... Hey there's something shiny!" (http://is.gd/ihT5)
2) You seem to suggest that people can have "days" of peak performance. I simply don't agree. At least I haven't. Peak performance and concentration are draining and therefore not perpetually sustainable. I believe that someone who knows how to harness the peak (The Now Habit offers a pretty good method) doesn't strive to work at peak 100% of the time, but rather to work in short bursts. In the down time, "errands" would actually be productive. This is usually when I check my email, twitter, visit blogs, etc. The key is not to get carried away and get completely off track (which I think I have with this response haha).
3. Finally, there's one type of procrastination that really doesn't fall into your framework (if it did it would be somewhere between B&C). This is "productive behavior", like reading blogs of smart people, :cough: no irony here :cough:, at times when its not productive to do so. For highly motivated individuals this is probably the most pervasive and devastating type of procrastination, because we want to keep up with all the latest happenings and be "thought leaders," but time spent developing thought leadership by reading is rarely time spent moving value creating projects forward.
The one thing I agree with you on wholeheartedly, and its a very big thing, is that there is truly 1 question above all others that the productive individual needs to ask himself, "What is the most valuable thing I can be doing right now?"
Regardless, thanks for sharing your experience.
Philibert
· 2 years ago
I have been reading your past essays. One thing I found out, often peoples confuse Important & Urgent... If you plot a graph of Importance vs Urgence, you often see peoples procrastinating working on Urgent/Not important or worst Not Urgent/Not Important things. The best thing to do is working on Important/Not Urgent things, since these will become Urgent on day otherwise. - philibert
sherab
· 2 years ago
i think it aruguementary in form but why it is so
whatev
· 2 years ago
interesting question
adfsf
· 1 year ago
because I am procrastinating, i wont bother to read this since its so long.......
swimming against the tide
· 2 years ago
I think the idea of going for the important/enjoyable project is a good motivator, but the conflict between errands and "real work" turns into a different equation when other people enter into it--if you have family that you are responsible for, whether it is an aging parent or young children. Those annoying errands (cooking, cleaning, shopping for necessities) suddenly become more urgent and important, and unless you have a household staff, someone needs to get them done. Your kid is not going to be impressed with your masterwork if he hasn't eaten, nor is your parent if you forgot to refill her prescription. That is the test of a true procrastitor--can you manage your time enough to be able to work and manage your responsibilities. There are not many people who can. I don't have the answer, but I thought I'd raise the point. Maybe someone who has found the answer will share it with the rest of us.
Giving not creating, but happy
· 1 year ago
I appreciate your post because I had many of the same thoughts while I read this essay. I have two young children fighting bad colds tonight. Pushing off errands at some points in our lives is simply not an option and is incredibly selfish, even if the eventual hope is to create something really "important." Hopefully each of us has some phase of their life in which they are able to push off the errands, although that time is not now for me. Those of you who are able to perform your real work, please take time to thank those around you that make it possible: spouses, assistants, parents, receptionists, benefactors. I am sure you have some type of support team to make that happen.
anonymous
· 2 years ago
Great article, but the notion that errands should be put off even if that means they will need more work later is a little difficult to accept.
Also, sometimes getting the little things right does matter. I think errands like that deserve different treatment from pure procrastination.
Finally, type (b) procrastination can be a (perhaps perverse) form of recreation.
The main takeaway for me is: be conscious of type (b) procrastination and be honest with youself about why you are doing things.
Gerardo J Sanchez
· 2 years ago
Theres is a opposite word of procrastination that describes the opposite meaning?
Thanks in advance
Jeanne Eirheim
· 1 year ago
I liked your article and would like to add my own experience. Over the past 37 years I have completed 26 textbook projects, feeling all the while like the greatest procrastinator the world has ever spawned. I would sit at my desk and discover that my windows needed washing or that some of my students' special needs had to be met at once. It took me years of guilt and anxiety to realize that procrastination often meant that I had not yet worked out the answers to my large projects and that while washing windows I was mulling over the problems i faced in the creative process. It usually happened along the way that one morning I would wake up and simply complete the project, or most of it. In later years, I would say to myself, "It will be...it will be..." as a way of allaying anxiety. That too was a great help. I have given birth. Creation, whether birthing or writing is painful. I simply cannot do it the easy way. Can anyone?
Amy
· 1 year ago
Procrastination is bad because you are always trying to do it at the last minute and it may cause you to lose sleep or become depressed and it could cause head aches and other body issues. I am a huge procrastinator and that is why I am doing a project to help and to make people see that procrastination is NO good.
Varun Shukla
· 1 year ago
I would also like to know about tye (a) procrastination.
Arizona Computer Repair
· 1 year ago
I know I procrastinate. I really have no reason why I do it, I just know I do sometimes. Maybe it just is motiviation.
Lydia Cornell
· 1 year ago
Thank you; this is an amazing article -- just what I needed! xo Lydia
Terri
· 1 year ago
A former therapist figured out that I also engage in a different sort of procrastination, and she started emulating it in certain situations. Sometimes if you do something "at the last minute" you don't end up letting yourself spend more time on it than you really, really need to. Like doing your taxes or filling out forms--if you leave yourself *just* enough time, you simply can't fart around while you're doing it and waste time. I never thought about this as positive procrastination until, as I said, my then-therapist said it was her new method for filling out her insurance reimbursement forms! She'd leave herself just enough time to *just fill them out already* and get them in the mail before the post office closed.
Simon
· 1 year ago
Wow, I am so glad I found your site before it became too late.
Trying to finish writing up my final year project while innumerable errands offer a seemingly painless alternative had been such a hard task until I read this essay.
I will take heed.
sdgfesrgseht
· 1 year ago
would you mind posting this source in MLA style for me??
tyrone
· 1 year ago
thank you for making this article. it really helped me. actually, i was that sort of type-A procrastinator and i was feeling horrible about myself. i need to do important things
cool i didnt know there'd be good and bad ways of procrastination :)
a
· 1 year ago
Cj
· 1 year ago
How do I get a copy of the article creative Procrastination? where can I find it to read, because when I try to asscess my computer it comes up denied asscess?
eileen Gribble
· 1 year ago
this is useful and makes me feel much better about my unfinished choirs.
farid98
· 1 year ago
Great read. I've always somehow felt that "luck favors the lazy". Had this feeling that sometimes being lazy was the best strategy and saves you more time in the long run. You've put it in a structure that makes it clear exactly what kinds of things it pays to be lazy about. Thanks !
E.C.
· 1 year ago
But what do you do when you have a spouse who practices Procrastination Type-B and is annoyed that you haven't bought any bread or milk in days?
denisse
· 1 year ago
procrasination is good or bad depending on one's personality... i work better under pressure, and its not an excuse, its a fact because when i do things before hand, i think too much, end up changing my ideas and that really doesnt work for me. i stress my assigment after i do it in advance because i always end up going back to it. Not good for me.
nefertiti
· 1 year ago
Beautifully and succinctly written. Thank you. What helped me the most was to learn to put things aside from this article. What you expressed here were the exact same feelings that ive been going through, especially the point on not being able to face the big problems directly in the eye. I was completely paralyzed, vacuumed as you put it right, when i sat down to 'writing it'. Ive still to find the right angle to face it!!! Tough :)
Love
Abel
· 1 year ago
wow! This will help me a lot. I'm a multi-talented artist living in Davao City Philppines.
Frédérique soria
· 1 year ago
what about a french translation ! please many thanks
julie
· 1 year ago
Some people procrastinate because the task seems like the beginning of a journey some procrastinate because they cant organise themselves enoug to start the frightning task i procrastinate - i dont really know why. i have to make a phone call.. i do the dishes, hoover the house, check email ..that i checked already, do exercises for good health..write a letter, play Sudoku, watch Neighbours, or Eastenders .. then Oh Is that the time?.. i better start cooking.,, i better clear the table, i better put things away, it is a bit late now to do the call.. no one will be around to take the call..meanwhile while am busy planning ... i have burnt my food, left the tap running in the kitchen... lefft the garden tools out... suddenly it is dark out and everything is an emergency... maybe i have too many excuses, too many choices, too many distractions.. or maybe am just lazy or stupid. i have yet to find out.. but it is enough to make me depressed .. i am running round trying to catch my own tail so to speak.. i am beginning to feel Why am i here? if am no good to anyone, to myself ..what am i doing here if procrastination slows me down completely... what's life without a manageable purpose
Lauren
· 1 year ago
Paul, this advice is all well and good, but rather impractical for anyone who has a "real" life (which you may or may not consider a real life). What I mean by that is a spouse, kids, and a house to maintain.
After reading your advice here, and reading Richard Hamming's essay as you recommended, I was left with the feeling that I simply don't have enough luxury hours to be "great," given that I have real-life duties that cannot simply be cast aside as your so-called Type B errands.
Do you think it is impossible to be simultaneously great AND a working mom / working dad? And I don't mean a parent who neglects the spouse and kids. If you have the answers and advice, maybe you could make this a topic for one of your future essays.
Thanks.
SeanPMG
· 1 year ago
Recommendation: read a book called Learned optimism.
ryan meehan
· 1 year ago
I have an essay on procrastination myself that i have been procrastinating and now i dont even want to do it because the idea of it is stupid and is not important to me at all when i want to do something bigger with my life, your essay comes from a different angle and i like it, but maybe a tad to extreme like aristotle would say we need a some kind of mean in life. Anyways back to my boring essay to which i was assigned..... lets go to bussiness in the future i like your style
Jason Cohen
· 1 year ago
Spot on. It was vital to me not only in the first few years of my bootstrapped business but even today.
It's not necessarily about being "great," but a way of dealing with the fact that you never have enough time to do everything.
Thank you for helping us forgive ourselves for unwashed dishes, unfolded laundry and other chores. Today I've been riveted by a new project and berating myself for undone household tasks. Thank you for freeing me from guilt!
Nargis
· 1 year ago
Hey! I liked this article, goes with how i think and feel. I find myself writing to-do list on my calendar and procrastrinating few tasks - those are actually the ones i dont WANT to face. True mate!
Marek Janous
· 11 months ago
I don't think advice in this essay is going to cut it for the rest of us who don't long to go through our lives as uncared-for weirdoes, eyes set on that rocking obituary.
Perhaps, truly great people don't need this advice anyway, since they will instinctively put aside anything that lies in their path to greatness.
For the rest of us, this advice is rather dangerous--it seemingly frees us from worries about the mundane, which, however, matters to us too. Otherwise we would not worry in the first place (like the great people?).
Discretion what to do when is key. Every one of us has available a few hours a day of peak intellectual performance. There may be two peaks a day, which brings some hope if you have to support yourselves by being in employment and one of those peaks falls within your office hours (good for your work though).
Know thy peak hours! You can then safely avoid errands at your peak hours if you know you're going to do them at another time when your mind runs in lower gear.
In your private life, try to arrange with your partner or family, if possible, to have--on some days at least--that peak time for yourself. (If your partner is inflexible on this, get another partner. No, really! You definitely need someone with his or her own interests too!)
Keep notes. Make checklists! (Even if you don't follow them…) Maintain a very simple log of what you did when: you don't need more than a date, and a line or two stating what you did, what you considered, and, quite importantly, what you intended to do next. The next time you free yourself from the dull world of errands, you'll find your own notes helpful. You'll see your log and you'll know you were getting somewhere.
This sure is not the optimal path to great achievements, but it might help you maintain both your life, and your dreams alive.
Lastly, let's not forget those poor souls endowed with so many talents that one human life cannot possibly make for them all…
Focus. Write down your major interests. Try to pick the least few possible which absolutely matter to you most. Put others "on the waiting list" (See? You don't have to write them off altogether--just yet.)
For every major interest of yours, pick--if possible--only one immediate goal; write others on a "waiting list" of ideas. (Write down as many of them as you like. Knowing that you have them written down safely and not forgotten will ease your mind.)
Make a weekly schedule--not rigid, flexible. Make it only a loose supportive framework that can fit a reasonable amount of the unforeseen. The purpose of this "exercise" is that you need to see that there is room to work on your interests. You need to get that picture that there are times when you can. If there are not, you have to re-arrange some of your other activities. If you still seem to have too many interests to fit into your available time, you still need to offload some of them onto your waiting list!
Understand that only if you can come up with a realistic model of your week, do you stand any chance to half-meet your expectations of yourself. If you expect of yourself more than you can fit within your week, you stand no chance!
If you can afford the luxury of going after your delight for a few days in a row, as Paul suggests, surely do it. Do not, however, feel guilty if you catch up with some of those waiting errands afterwards. For goodness' sake, after a protracted intellectual indulgence, do yourself a favor and relax your mind by doing some of those errands.
Marlene Affeld
· 11 months ago
Excellent article - very focused and insightful.
Laurie
· 11 months ago
I have just bumbled upon this site today (from a WIRED article on SuperMemo) and have decided to require my homeschooled son to digest selected essays of Paul Graham. I notice as a mother that's yet another way I procrastinate, by hoping that my child will do the things I was too busy/scared/conservative to do.
Kyle
· 10 months ago
I am a bad procrastinator and thinking I would find a solution to it, I stumbled into this blog. I started reading, and thought, "hey, this is good, this might help me." I then kept on reading and I realized that this article was a waste and it basically only described the procrastination from impressive people you knew. No where in the article did it describe my type of procrastination.
Liz
· 9 months ago
I am a terrible prcorastinator. In fact, I am prcrastinating right now. I find that my best ideas, topics, and vocabulary are easier to access when I am under stress(say my work is due in the morning) than if I have plenty of time to do it. That is just how my creative process works.
Luke
· 9 months ago
It's all about AD/HD anyway.
Djilali
· 9 months ago
Hi Paul, it is a pure pleasure reading your articles. I recently realized I was ADD (thanks to my Super Hyper little boy, himself ADHD) and I can fully understand you on the procrastination issue. This is a long journey, but a great outcome will end it.
Dominique
· 8 months ago
I am so glad I clicked on the link to this article before reading anything else on procrastination. I am one of these people feeling guilty for not replying to mails and draw instead of study... This makes so much sense and I think that removing a little guilt might help focusing better on what I am already working on.
Thanks!
jus22
· 8 months ago
your data tells what excactly happens. My procrastination has always broken me down. I alwys call small things small and at the end i have no option but to do them, when am only counting hours to the dedline minute.
Mike
· 7 months ago
I feel so... validated... :)
Dylan *procastinator*
· 7 months ago
*warning* *procrastination*
Personally i like this site there are a lot of site that say do this! and do that! we are procastinators!!!! we usually dont want to do stuff!!!!! i myself always reply to sites!!! is it procastinating probaly but its usually wasted time as their websites email is broken so i waste like 10-20 min doing an email with questions and it just wasted my time because they stiffed up there email!!!!! and then i dont feel like working!!! i personally dont think i will get over my procastination problems no matter how many good sites (like this one) i read as, i cannot get rid of my errands as im forced to do them
>.> to all procastinators that have people that constantly FORCE you to do errands rather get them to rid this site or lock yourself into a space with food and drinks as if you dont when you go to get one... they will get you to do another errand!!!!!!!
whether or not this has been a useful comment or just me procastinating myself... is up for discussion (dont discuss it it will be a waste of time and you yoursel;f will be procastinating!!!!!!!!!!)
Georgina Cowie
· 6 months ago
Interesting and enlightening. Also the comments are, well, interesting. Now that I am reading the comments, however, I realize I have succumed. Now I am worried about how to spell succumed. You see I started to read about this because I wanted some information on "P" to help me with a client. I am supposed to be charting on his chart at this very moment. Gotta go!!! Thanks anyway.
That's a very good and well written article. One thing to add: procrastination is like a disease in a way - often people aren't aware they are procrastinating until the symptoms appear i.e. complaints, tasks incomplete, unahppiness and or disilusionment etc like any disease recognising the signs of it are useful so counter measures can be implemented or acceptance that right now my body and mind are telling me to relax it's not something that is important to me. Identifying importance (your level 1) is very important as this usally triggers enthusiasm and commitment to the task.
arent i indulging in procastination again by readin this article .........i am suppose to be learning smthnig new right now(java).......and i thought why not take a break so i started readin this article but on a more positive note it does make sense and is very true ......procastination is a disease and the first stage of recovery is excepting u have this disease but all the people i see arnd me are procastinators and they irritate me to the core i hope im not one of them i guess everyone is a bit lazy but there needs to be some control and measure i hope i can control mine........
Heidi
· 4 months ago
What a delight! I will "let delight guide" by posting this article on the wall and sending it to my friends, so that I might remember to procrastinate well, ward off the guilt and "sail close to the wind". I (2) feel so… validated… :)
xaox2008
· 4 months ago
Despite of how absurd it may sound, procrastination and laziness are two of the cornerstones which are in the heart of creativity and evolution (civilization).
stevenglass
· 4 months ago
Proof in points: no one gave Neil Armstrong a hard time for not going shopping -- ever -- after 1969. No one gave Albert Einstein a hard time for having just one color suit (not one suit, lots of identical suits); made even the task of dressing utterly un-distracting. In all regards success always justifies the means, at least when it comes to individual efforts, but you have to have accepted success before others accept you as a type C procrastinator.
"Time spent lamenting wasted time is more wasted time."
zacieas
· 4 months ago
MMM... while reading this I am procrastinating on my work... I better go and do it now
emfelix
· 4 months ago
Procrastination brings out the best in me...
procrastinator
· 3 months ago
So I have a choice ... I can feel guilty about letting my errands slide, or I can feel guilty that I'm not working on my "best thing".
To me, the above things are not really symptoms of procrastination, because at least I'm getting SOMETHING done... The above are both indicative of someone who sets their priorities in ways that are productive but not balanced. Either choice will get you some respect and some criticism.
Real procrastination is when I feel guilty about both at the same time, because I'm doing NOTHING. (I have money in the bank but all my bills are overdue, my taxes aren't filed, my dishes are all dirty and there's no food in my fridge. I think I'll grab my phone and order a pizza. Whoops, I forgot to re-charge my phone. Oh, Lost is coming on. I'll charge it later.) Now that's procrastination.
claycarson
· 3 months ago
good meaty stuff here!
how come almost nobody else researches this kind of stuff?? everyone is affected by it, no?
probably just too scary to own up to, most likely!
erikb85
· 3 months ago
Its an interesting point of view. It's totally different, from what you learn from Zen.
Ren
· 3 months ago
I think there is a difference in procrastinating and prioritizing, not "good" or "bad" procrastination. Procrastination has it's own definition.
Name
· 3 months ago
I started reading your replies and then I just stopped right away, now that's procrastination!
Can someone change my diaper please? I just don't feel l
lol im reading this artice instead of writing a papers thats due tomorrow
Laura1
· 2 months ago
I agree with Procrastinator, I only consider it procrastination when I am doing something that is not productive at all or even counter-productive. Such things include, watching tv, eating when not hungry, doodling, stumbling etc. Initially, I agreed with your article and your categories of procrastination. However, I disagree with your statement that doing errands is procrastination, just because a task may seem trivial and is definitely not going to lead to your 'name in lights' doesn't mean it is a waste of time. These small things add up and mean a lot more to those who love and care for you than than the new breakthrough in theoretical physics you made or whatever. People value things you do for them, no matter how small over things that are done for personal glorification. Like others have said, it is really about your priorities. If you would rather sacrifice your personal relationships for personal glorification then that is your perogative. Seemingly small tasks can be just as, if not more important then 'big, important, yet usually more self-motivated ones' depending on your perspective. Like the majority of things, balance is the key.
jade
· 1 month ago
I know a relatively well known author of fiction who chose to write "the novel of her life" by abandoning her children and husband, to run to the USA and make contacts there. She then proceeded to pester the hubby she abandoned to edit her novel (which the poor man did, he is also a good writer you see) via email. Afterward she married her publisher, and hardly ever talked to her first husband and children again. One of her children, whom she promised to help support through college, is now a manic depressive and doesn't trust anyone. Yup that woman sure chose to prioritize all right... and ruined the lives of her family and several friends. Would you classify her as a type C procrastinator?
Liosis
· 1 month ago
Umm, manic depression isn't caused by not being put through college. It is an illness that needs treatment. Maybe her child needed attention and proper treatment, but that is as much the fault of a society that doesn't look after the mentally ill then anything else. It doesn't make sense. We look after people who drool and can hardly function as human beings, but these brilliant productive people who just need support and affordable medications are being ignored.
Obviously forcing her husband to edit and ignoring her children afterward cannot be part of the procrastination unless she was doing something more important at the time, which I gather she wasn't because you don't point to anything but the novel that at this time she would already have written.
Also the things this suggests to ignore are small day to day tasks. There is mention I believe of things like taxes and mowing the lawn. Those things get put off a few days. That means family commitments might get put off a few days.
Your ad absurdum fails to properly comprehend the text.
jade
· 1 month ago
Oh and may I add, the novel that author wrote was middling mediocre and in the style of so many other authors of her day, in short it wasn't even original :)
mark654
· 1 month ago
most people who commented against this article think that the author is against doing everyday life stuff like spending time with your family, cleaning your house, etc. May be he is, but if you look at the article from a different angle and look at things that you do at your work when you work for someone else in your company, you will surprise yourself by how "unimportant" most of those things are and that if don't do them at all, nothing bad or good will happen. So if you revise your daily work this way and filter out those "to-do" things that don't affect your life or your company you'll find that you have plenty of time to work on something that's more important. Next time you are asked to attend a meeting, ask yourself -- "what happens if I don't go? Will my company/work suffer or it will be OK?" If you answer - "it will be OK" then don't go and you'll elliminate one source of interruptions. Off course you may piss off your manager this way (if he is stupid) who may think that sitting in the room with other people and talking about "stuff" is important (most managers do those meetings so they can have a fake feeling that they are actually "in control", when in most cases they are not and stuff gets done or not done regardless).
Chelsea
· 1 month ago
I have a speech due tomorrow that I haven't written yet, and I just finished a paper. It's 2:35 in the morning, and I'm reading this instead of doing my speech. But I have now decided that since procrastination obviously defines my life, I am speaking tomorrow on procrastination. Thanks! :)
Nosferato
· 1 month ago
I just stumbled on this, strangely enough earlier today I was beginning to think on these lines too.
great article
Liosis
· 1 month ago
I love how you finish off which the sailboat metaphor. I think this makes things a bit clearer for me, thank you.
PM Hut
· 1 month ago
Procrastination is man's biggest enemy, Napoleon Hill says (and rightfully so) that procrastination is something that every successful person should vanquish.
As a Project Manager, I can tell you that procrastination is a way of life, and whether it's good or bad, you fight it, and it fights back, sometimes you win, sometimes you let it win (hopefully when it's good procrastination).
In real life, I see procrastination on a daily basis, procrastinating critical tasks (because of the high complexity and the laziness of some programmers), procrastinating testing (because programmers hate testing and testers hate programmers), procrastinating that report on the project status which in turns metamorphoses into something that can get someone fired... I can't tell you how many examples of procrastination I see every day.
PS: I used your book (On LISP) for my LISP and AI course 10 years ago!
All Comments
And now i read this text, and it was so calming and refresh that was something like a faithul knight giving me a grail.
I don't know if you know the power of these words and how it can help someone desperate, but i can assure that it can save lifes, e.g. my own.
Thanks a lot. Please, never stop writing.
Have a nice day and take care.
Despite my entrepreneurialism and some pretty big achievements for my age throughout college (organizing large festivals & front page worthy events, etc.), the majority of the time, I found myself almost crippled by my ADD fueled procrastination.
Fortunately, my good friend and fellow self improvement junkie, David Weisburd (great blog @ www.davidweisburd.com), introduced me to a book that completely changed my life, The Now Habit. In the Now Habit, procrastination is explained as a deep rooted & complex affliction, so I don't think this post really does justice to explaining it. Its causes are many and varied and understanding them has really helped me deal with my own issues. Fortunately, The Now Habit also offers a straightforward and fiercely effective set of tools to overcome it (more straight forward than GTD, imo).
I think your assessment of procrastination is flawed for 3 reasons.
1) You seem to suggest that people who get distracted by impressive projects only get distracted by one at a time. For entrepreneurs, this is simply not true. Dharmesh Shah at OnStartups wrote a great article about this, "Entrepeneurs and ... Hey there's something shiny!" (http://is.gd/ihT5)
2) You seem to suggest that people can have "days" of peak performance. I simply don't agree. At least I haven't. Peak performance and concentration are draining and therefore not perpetually sustainable. I believe that someone who knows how to harness the peak (The Now Habit offers a pretty good method) doesn't strive to work at peak 100% of the time, but rather to work in short bursts. In the down time, "errands" would actually be productive. This is usually when I check my email, twitter, visit blogs, etc. The key is not to get carried away and get completely off track (which I think I have with this response haha).
3. Finally, there's one type of procrastination that really doesn't fall into your framework (if it did it would be somewhere between B&C). This is "productive behavior", like reading blogs of smart people, :cough: no irony here :cough:, at times when its not productive to do so. For highly motivated individuals this is probably the most pervasive and devastating type of procrastination, because we want to keep up with all the latest happenings and be "thought leaders," but time spent developing thought leadership by reading is rarely time spent moving value creating projects forward.
The one thing I agree with you on wholeheartedly, and its a very big thing, is that there is truly 1 question above all others that the productive individual needs to ask himself, "What is the most valuable thing I can be doing right now?"
Regardless, thanks for sharing your experience.
Also, sometimes getting the little things right does matter. I think errands like that deserve different treatment from pure procrastination.
Finally, type (b) procrastination can be a (perhaps perverse) form of recreation.
The main takeaway for me is: be conscious of type (b) procrastination and be honest with youself about why you are doing things.
Thanks in advance
xo
Lydia
Trying to finish writing up my final year project while innumerable errands offer a seemingly painless alternative had been such a hard task until I read this essay.
I will take heed.
Tough :)
Love
many thanks
some procrastinate because they cant organise themselves enoug to start the frightning task
i procrastinate - i dont really know why. i have to make a phone call.. i do the dishes, hoover the house, check email ..that i checked already, do exercises for good health..write a letter, play Sudoku, watch Neighbours, or Eastenders .. then Oh Is that the time?..
i better start cooking.,, i better clear the table, i better put things away, it is a bit late now to do the call.. no one will be around to take the call..meanwhile while am busy planning ... i have burnt my food, left the tap running in the kitchen... lefft the garden tools out... suddenly it is dark out and everything is an emergency... maybe i have too many excuses, too many choices, too many distractions.. or maybe am just lazy or stupid. i have yet to find out.. but it is enough to make me depressed .. i am running round trying to catch my own tail so to speak.. i am beginning to feel Why am i here? if am no good to anyone, to myself ..what am i doing here if procrastination slows me down completely... what's life without a manageable purpose
After reading your advice here, and reading Richard Hamming's essay as you recommended, I was left with the feeling that I simply don't have enough luxury hours to be "great," given that I have real-life duties that cannot simply be cast aside as your so-called Type B errands.
Do you think it is impossible to be simultaneously great AND a working mom / working dad? And I don't mean a parent who neglects the spouse and kids. If you have the answers and advice, maybe you could make this a topic for one of your future essays.
Thanks.
It's not necessarily about being "great," but a way of dealing with the fact that you never have enough time to do everything.
I just wrote about my experiences: http://blog.asmartbear.com/2008/10/procrastinat...
I find myself writing to-do list on my calendar and procrastrinating few tasks - those are actually the ones i dont WANT to face.
True mate!
Perhaps, truly great people don't need this advice anyway, since they will instinctively put aside anything that lies in their path to greatness.
For the rest of us, this advice is rather dangerous--it seemingly frees us from worries about the mundane, which, however, matters to us too. Otherwise we would not worry in the first place (like the great people?).
Discretion what to do when is key. Every one of us has available a few hours a day of peak intellectual performance. There may be two peaks a day, which brings some hope if you have to support yourselves by being in employment and one of those peaks falls within your office hours (good for your work though).
Know thy peak hours! You can then safely avoid errands at your peak hours if you know you're going to do them at another time when your mind runs in lower gear.
In your private life, try to arrange with your partner or family, if possible, to have--on some days at least--that peak time for yourself. (If your partner is inflexible on this, get another partner. No, really! You definitely need someone with his or her own interests too!)
Keep notes. Make checklists! (Even if you don't follow them…) Maintain a very simple log of what you did when: you don't need more than a date, and a line or two stating what you did, what you considered, and, quite importantly, what you intended to do next.
The next time you free yourself from the dull world of errands, you'll find your own notes helpful. You'll see your log and you'll know you were getting somewhere.
This sure is not the optimal path to great achievements, but it might help you maintain both your life, and your dreams alive.
Lastly, let's not forget those poor souls endowed with so many talents that one human life cannot possibly make for them all…
Focus. Write down your major interests. Try to pick the least few possible which absolutely matter to you most. Put others "on the waiting list" (See? You don't have to write them off altogether--just yet.)
For every major interest of yours, pick--if possible--only one immediate goal; write others on a "waiting list" of ideas. (Write down as many of them as you like. Knowing that you have them written down safely and not forgotten will ease your mind.)
Make a weekly schedule--not rigid, flexible. Make it only a loose supportive framework that can fit a reasonable amount of the unforeseen. The purpose of this "exercise" is that you need to see that there is room to work on your interests. You need to get that picture that there are times when you can. If there are not, you have to re-arrange some of your other activities. If you still seem to have too many interests to fit into your available time, you still need to offload some of them onto your waiting list!
Understand that only if you can come up with a realistic model of your week, do you stand any chance to half-meet your expectations of yourself. If you expect of yourself more than you can fit within your week, you stand no chance!
If you can afford the luxury of going after your delight for a few days in a row, as Paul suggests, surely do it. Do not, however, feel guilty if you catch up with some of those waiting errands afterwards. For goodness' sake, after a protracted intellectual indulgence, do yourself a favor and relax your mind by doing some of those errands.
I recently realized I was ADD (thanks to my Super Hyper little boy, himself ADHD) and I can fully understand you on the procrastination issue.
This is a long journey, but a great outcome will end it.
This makes so much sense and I think that removing a little guilt might help focusing better on what I am already working on.
Thanks!
*procrastination*
Personally i like this site there are a lot of site that say do this! and do that! we are procastinators!!!! we usually dont want to do stuff!!!!! i myself always reply to sites!!! is it procastinating probaly but its usually wasted time as their websites email is broken so i waste like 10-20 min doing an email with questions and it just wasted my time because they stiffed up there email!!!!! and then i dont feel like working!!! i personally dont think i will get over my procastination problems no matter how many good sites (like this one) i read as, i cannot get rid of my errands as im forced to do them
>.> to all procastinators that have people that constantly FORCE you to do errands rather get them to rid this site or lock yourself into a space with food and drinks as if you dont when you go to get one... they will get you to do another errand!!!!!!!
whether or not this has been a useful comment or just me procastinating myself... is up for discussion (dont discuss it it will be a waste of time and you yoursel;f will be procastinating!!!!!!!!!!)
Dr.David Black
www.blackchiropractic.com.au
One thing to add: procrastination is like a disease in a way - often people aren't aware they are procrastinating until the symptoms appear i.e. complaints, tasks incomplete, unahppiness and or disilusionment etc like any disease recognising the signs of it are useful so counter measures can be implemented or acceptance that right now my body and mind are telling me to relax it's not something that is important to me. Identifying importance (your level 1) is very important as this usally triggers enthusiasm and commitment to the task.
Here's a quick tool to get you going: http://antiprocrastinator.com/
"Time spent lamenting wasted time is more wasted time."
To me, the above things are not really symptoms of procrastination, because at least I'm getting SOMETHING done... The above are both indicative of someone who sets their priorities in ways that are productive but not balanced. Either choice will get you some respect and some criticism.
Real procrastination is when I feel guilty about both at the same time, because I'm doing NOTHING. (I have money in the bank but all my bills are overdue, my taxes aren't filed, my dishes are all dirty and there's no food in my fridge. I think I'll grab my phone and order a pizza. Whoops, I forgot to re-charge my phone. Oh, Lost is coming on. I'll charge it later.) Now that's procrastination.
how come almost nobody else researches this kind of stuff?? everyone is affected by it, no?
probably just too scary to own up to, most likely!
Can someone change my diaper please? I just don't feel l
Here's a quick tool to get you going: http://antiprocrastinator.com/
Obviously forcing her husband to edit and ignoring her children afterward cannot be part of the procrastination unless she was doing something more important at the time, which I gather she wasn't because you don't point to anything but the novel that at this time she would already have written.
Also the things this suggests to ignore are small day to day tasks. There is mention I believe of things like taxes and mowing the lawn. Those things get put off a few days. That means family commitments might get put off a few days.
Your ad absurdum fails to properly comprehend the text.
Thanks! :)
great article
As a Project Manager, I can tell you that procrastination is a way of life, and whether it's good or bad, you fight it, and it fights back, sometimes you win, sometimes you let it win (hopefully when it's good procrastination).
In real life, I see procrastination on a daily basis, procrastinating critical tasks (because of the high complexity and the laziness of some programmers), procrastinating testing (because programmers hate testing and testers hate programmers), procrastinating that report on the project status which in turns metamorphoses into something that can get someone fired... I can't tell you how many examples of procrastination I see every day.
PS: I used your book (On LISP) for my LISP and AI course 10 years ago!