Procrastinating productively

I finally have a name and a coherent philosophy behind the kind of productive work-avoidance I've been doing for much of my adult life. You know the kind: I have a big stack of papers to grade, so I decide to choose my books for next semester's courses. Or I'm supposed to write up minutes to a meeting, so I work on an article instead?

And now I know that Stanford philosopher John Perry calls this sort of thing -- this avoiding what one is supposed to be doing by doing something else productive instead -- "structured procrastination," and he has an interesting essay on it (indeed, it's the name of his website). In said essay, he makes the point that

Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by definition the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.

This is an eye-opener for me; I always knew that I got more done when I had more to do, but somehow I never adopted as a conscious strategy the approach of deliberately taking on more projects so that there would always be something to do by way of avoiding something else. It also goes a long way to explaining my "summertime blues," in which I spend untold hours as a couch potato and feel gloomier and gloomier; I think I need to take on extra obligations rather than feeling pleased by the fewer obligations.

For my fellow procrastinators, I highly recommend taking a gander at John Perry's essay. This may have changed my whole approach to work.

(Hat tip to 43 Folders.)

Comments

[Thoroughly Educated]

OMG this is so true! (Say I from my couch, a good hour after I could have been starting the productive part of my day.) It also, I think, explains why I was so much happier and more productive all around when I had a job with a higher teaching load. How nice to have a name for the syndrome!

[heu mihi]

Hm. Interesting (and it makes sense; I, like you, am more able to get things done when I have a lot to do). Perhaps I can use this to try to change my attitude towards my high teaching load? (--Although surely there's a limit to how busy one can stand to be!)