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9 April 2023 11 Min Read

The Art of Procrastination - Good or Bad?

As much as we think we came up with ‘procrastination’ in the digital age, that’s not particularly true. The term dates back to the 16th century, so it’s over 400 years old. Yet, the concept of procrastination, or putting off tasks or responsibilities, has likely been around for much longer than the term itself. If you ask me, I believe it’s as old as the world itself.

Many perceive procrastination as bad, and that’s not without reason. It often leads to negative consequences, and people relate it to incompetence, laziness, and unproductivity. However, as controversial as it might sound, sometimes procrastination can be positive.

So, let’s dive into the topic. What causes procrastination? Moreover, how can you recognize when procrastination becomes a problem and turn it into a positive thing?

What Is Procrastination?

Procrastination occurs when you delay or postpone tasks or actions you need to complete, often until the last minute or when the deadline has passed.

It can take many forms. For instance, you might put off school, work assignments, or household chores. However, procrastination also refers to difficult conversations with your boss, partner, friends, or family. Delaying important decisions, i.e., being stuck in your comfort zone, can also be a form of procrastination.

Have you heard the famous saying by Benjamin Franklin: “Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” Well, he was referring to procrastination.

Important

Overcoming procrastination is an important skill you need to develop to achieve personal and professional goals.

Why Do You Procrastinate?

People primarily procrastinate as it gives them temporary relief from stress or discomfort. So, it can be due to a variety of reasons.

First, you may procrastinate because you lack motivation or interest in the task at hand. Distractions also play a crucial role in this regard.

Warning

If you frequently engage in activities that provide immediate gratification, such as checking social media or watching TV, you will be less motivated to do your chores and work activities.

Poor time management can also cause pressure, leading you to postpone your tasks. The same occurs when you don’t have a plan on how to do something, making it difficult to get started. If you feel overwhelmed by a task due to time constraints or its complexity, you might feel repelled to start.

Finally, perfectionism can cause fear of failure. If you fear that you won’t be able to complete a task well or you will fail altogether, you might start avoiding the obligation.

Why Is Procrastination Bad?

Procrastination can be harmful both in the short and long-term and in many ways, including the following.

You Miss Deadlines

When you start avoiding something or postpone it for another hour, day, or week, you’ll probably wake up one day with a ton of responsibilities. The longer you avoid them, the more you will have, and handling everything will be much more challenging.

As you put off tasks to the last minute and your obligations pile up, you might eventually miss the due date. And usually, missing deadlines comes with negative consequences. For instance, you can suffer from bad grades or poor evaluations. Sometimes, a missed deadline can also mean a legal or financial penalty.

Leads To Poor Performance

Now say you find the time to complete the task before the deadline. Most likely, if you are in a rush to complete a task, the quality will suffer.

You won’t have sufficient time to do your best, leading to lower quality of work than your standard performance. Moreover, it can limit your access to resources, such as research materials, expert advice, or other necessary tools. Finally, you might rush to make a decision due to not having enough time to evaluate your options.

You Finish The Wrong Tasks

People often confuse procrastination with laziness, yet, there’s a difference. Laziness means doing nothing, while procrastination means doing the wrong things.

Procrastination can distort your sense of priority. Consequently, you may lose sight of the key tasks for success and focus on easier, more enjoyable, or less stressful tasks. But the thing is, they are less relevant to your goals.

For example, say you have to prepare for a presentation. Suddenly, your desk mess bothers you. Next, you know it, you are reorganizing the kitchen or baking a cake. This is not laziness; it’s procrastination – engaging in tasks that provide immediate pleasure or satisfaction rather than focusing on tasks that require more effort but yield long-term benefits.

Warning

By completing less critical tasks, you may feel like you’re being productive when, in reality, you’re avoiding the tasks that truly matter. It can create a false sense of accomplishment and delay your progress.

You Miss on Valuable Opportunities

You can miss good opportunities if you procrastinate, limiting your growth and preventing you from reaching your goals.

Say you came across a job post for your dream job with a deadline of two weeks to submit the application. But instead of getting right to it, you decide to procrastinate. Instead of preparing for the application, you spend time on leisure. What happens next?

Well, the worst-case scenario is – you miss the application deadline altogether. But even if you manage to finish your application at the last minute, that’s not where it ends.

As you have limited time, you may hastily put together a resume and cover letter, which may lack the polish, detail, and customization necessary to stand out from other applicants. For instance, your rushed application might include typos, errors, or weak arguments that highlight why you’re the ideal candidate.

Moreover, you might not have sufficient time to research the company and position and tailor your application. And we all know that a generic application or anything less than a strong impression doesn’t cut it!

Or, say you secure an interview despite a rushed application. Unfortunately, being unprepared for the interview can also hinder your performance. For instance, you might not have the time to practice responses to common interview questions, research the company and its industry, and develop thoughtful questions to ask the interviewer.

Furthermore, you might miss out on valuable networking opportunities that could have increased your chances of landing the job. For example, you might have reached out to current or former employees at the company to learn more about the position or sought advice from mentors or peers in your field.

So, don’t procrastinate, and don’t wait for things to happen – take action!

Might Cause Stress and Anxiety

One of the worst things that go hand in hand with delaying tasks is that, eventually, this causes negative feelings, and often these feelings can harm your mental health.

Important

Procrastination reduces your productivity. And being unproductive will not only prevent you from accomplishing your goals timely and efficiently, but it will also make you feel frustrated and dissatisfied.

Procrastination is, more often than not, a reason for stress and anxiety. When you are under pressure and start panicking about things you could have done but didn’t, you will often start feeling bad about yourself. The more you do this, the bigger the chances of becoming anxious, and in the worst cases, it can even trigger other mental problems.

Warning

Putting off your tasks longer only means more negative emotions, worse mental and physical health, as well as our relationships with others.

It Increases Your Fear

One of the reasons why we procrastinate is because we are led by fear. Procrastination increases fear because it creates a cycle of avoidance and escalating anxiety.

When you put off tasks that evoke fear, you reinforce the belief that the task is too complex. You indirectly validate your own fears until you actually believe them. Then, you accept they’re too hard, which makes you even more afraid. Worse yet, as you wait to do the task, your anxiety grows, and the task seems scarier.

Tip

You must break this cycle of fear. Learn to manage your time better and build confidence to face challenging tasks head-on.

Taking on a challenge, making a decision that scares you, or finishing a task that makes you nervous can be daunting. However, taking the first step will help you overcome your fears. Moreover, you’ll make the decision faster next time around – it only gets easier with time.

Your Reputation Will Suffer

If you consistently fail to meet your obligations or commitments, miss deadlines, perform poorly, or are afraid, stressed, or anxious, people will eventually perceive you as unreliable or untrustworthy.

Therefore, procrastination can negatively impact your relationships with colleagues, friends, and family members and make achieving your goals more difficult.

How To Recognize When Procrastination Is Becoming A Problem?

You might find it hard to recognize whether procrastination is an issue.

Here are a few signs that your procrastination may be getting in the way of your goals and responsibilities:

You consistently turn in work at the last minute or frequently miss deadlines.
Feeling overwhelmed, persistently stressed, or anxious is part of your daily life.
You aren’t motivated to finish the tasks that get you closer to fulfilling your goals.
Distractions get you doing other things instead of the work that needs to be done.
You feel guilty or ashamed or blame yourself for your procrastination.
You find it difficult to keep track of tasks or prioritize them effectively.
You are missing out on opportunities for personal or professional development.
Strained relationships with colleagues, friends, or family members.
You neglect essential self-care activities such as exercise, proper nutrition, and rest.

Can Procrastination Be Good?

There is a speck of positivity in procrastination, especially after a long day of avoiding your responsibilities and letting them pile up until you no longer know how to handle them. Of course, there is no getting away from the anxiety it creates, but with the right intentions, it can be pretty beneficial.

Yes, I know how bad this sounds, but trust me, there is a bright side to it, and this is precisely how procrastination can become helpful for you in the long term.

You Get Rid of Unnecessary Tasks

Not all tasks are equally important. And sometimes, procrastination can help you reevaluate your priorities by highlighting which tasks genuinely matter to you.

Say you consistently avoid a particular task. It might indicate that it’s not as important as you initially thought. We often tend to put things on hold because, deep down, they are not that important to us. So you might just be procrastinating because you feel like wasting time with something that doesn’t make you happy.

Note

Mastering the art of procrastination will help you eliminate the tasks that are not all that necessary and open space for more meaningful activities and decisions.

You Might Get More Things Done

Not all people can work well under pressure, but there are exceptions. If you are one of the few that get better results when they are working last minute, then procrastination might not be that bad.

When the deadline is due, and you start panicking, you can become much more productive and work faster. Ultimately, you will get a lot of things done. This also brings us to the next positive thing of procrastination – releasing your inner creativity.

However, be careful, as things can quickly turn sideways. Just like some people work better under pressure, others cannot finish a single task stressed. So, it would be best to take this advice with a grain of salt and remember it all comes down to your character.

It Boosts Creativity

When you face a deadline, don’t have sufficient time, or work under pressure, your brain starts thinking of other alternatives.

Some of our most creative solutions happen when we procrastinate and feel the pressure of our decisions. As a matter of fact, some great revelations throughout history occurred as a result of procrastination.

Important

Procrastination can stimulate creativity and enhance problem-solving skills. It might lead to innovative ideas or unique solutions that wouldn’t have emerged if you had more time.

Improves Decision-Making

If you delay decisions, you might have extra time to gather information, evaluate options, and consider potential consequences. As a result, procrastination can generate better outcomes, especially when dealing with complex or high-stakes situations where rash decisions could have adverse effects.

Moreover, sometimes, procrastination can result in better timing for completing a task or deciding. For example, say you postpone a decision. You might find out new information in the meantime that influence the outcome. Or, say you delay a purchase; you might encounter a sale or promotion that saves you money.

Important

It would be best to balance the potential benefits of procrastination with the possible downsides to recognize when it might be counterproductive.

How To Turn Procrastination into A Good Thing?

While most people perceive procrastination as unfavorable, you have learned that it can be positive. So, the only question left is, how can you do so?

Here’s the advice that has helped me turn procrastination beneficial:

Set realistic deadlines that give you adequate time to complete tasks without rushing while providing a sense of urgency to keep you on track.
Prioritize the tasks that truly matter to you and postpone the ones you can afford to postpone without significant consequences.
Use procrastination as a signal that something isn’t working for you and an opportunity to reassess the task or project and make any necessary changes.
Take a break and recharge. You can return to your work with renewed energy and focus.
Break tasks down into smaller and more manageable pieces to feel less overwhelmed. It will help you start and make progress instead of avoiding or postponing again.
Give yourself permission to procrastinate and use it as an opportunity to get creative. You may find that you develop new ideas or approaches that can improve your work.
Set limits on how much you allow yourself to procrastinate to balance the benefits of additional reflection and information gathering with the need to complete tasks promptly.

Conclusion

As we’ve seen, procrastination isn’t always the enemy; sometimes, it can bring out your best, boosting creativity and enhancing decision-making.

Yet, remember to treat yourself kindly. We all procrastinate from time to time, and that’s 100% okay. What’s important is learning how to turn this seemingly negative behavior into a powerful ally that can help you grow and achieve your goals.

So, go forth and embrace the art of procrastination, making it work for you instead of against you. Who knows? You might just discover that it becomes one of your most valuable tools for success!

Frequently Asked Questions

Common reasons for procrastination include fear of failure or success, perfectionism, lack of motivation, feeling overwhelmed, poor time management, and difficulty making decisions.

Yes, occasional procrastination is normal, meaning most people experience it at some point. However, it’s essential to recognize when it becomes an issue that interferes with your personal, academic, or professional life and take steps to address it.

Recognize the pattern as soon as possible, think of why you are procrastinating, rearrange your priorities, make lists and set up your goals, and minimize distractions. Moreover, always start with the most challenging task when you are most productive and at your peak, reward yourself, practice better time management, and understand the risks of not completing your tasks and the rewards of doing so.

Procrastination can negatively impact mental health. It can increase stress, anxiety, and feelings of guilt or self-blame or contribute to a sense of inadequacy and lower self-esteem.

Yes, you can. Offer support and encouragement, collaborate on goal setting and time management, check in on their progress to provide accountability, and help them identify and address the underlying reasons for their procrastination.

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