Pet Peeve: Procrastination

Good Morning (or night or afternoon, wherever you are, whenever you read this)! This post / email is for those who want something fun to read. Hope you stick until the end!

Who suffers from procrastination? I’m sure a lot of people (including me) does.

I was listening to a podcast the other day (like, a few weeks ago), and I hope I can iterate what was said 😶‍🌫️. Basically, procrastination has been defined as a lot of different things in society, and in truth, not all of these that people define as ‘procrastination’ is actually procrastination. You might say you’re procrastinating, but actually, you aren’t. For example, you aren’t procrastinating or lazy if you deliberately take the time to, say, hang out with your kids instead of doing that thing you should be doing in your mind, but not. It might haunt you, and you may not enjoy that time with your kids as much as you could’ve. This is because you think you’re procrastinating, when actually, you’re spending quality time with your kids, deliberately and consciously.

Procrastination is defined (by Google or some other source) as the delaying or postponing of a task. That is a very limited definition. The person on the podcast reiterated the definition of procrastination as things you do that delays the task. I think, anyways. Essentially, you aren’t procrastinating if you’re on social media out of intention, or if it is part of the task at hand. It is procrastination if you do it without intention (unconsciously and mindlessly, without purpose), and it delays the task at hand. For example, you might excessively research everything and nothing about something when, really, you should just start the task, and the research can be done while doing the task or unnecessary in extremes. This is a form of procrastination.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t capture the essence of that podcast, so sorry.

Anyways, I suffer from procrastination (exhibition A: procrastination on writing and editing this newsletter). I believe this, for me, is due to a couple of reasons. First, I forget the task exists (I’m sorry, I think I’m getting old 🙃), second, it may be too tedious or too hard, and third, I make up a ton of excuses and reasons not to do the damn thing. Here’s the truth: if you just start, you’ll find that it wasn’t that difficult as you convinced yourself it is (Newton’s first law of motion).

Things may be new, and you may need to learn a couple of things before actually getting into it (especially those that addresses safety), but you just need to plunge into it to actually learn the thing effectively. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and mistakes should be encouraged as they are the root of improvement (as long as no one dies as a result).

Get over the fear of making mistakes, get over the need to strive for perfection. Don’t classify things as procrastination when they aren’t, and understand when you actually are procrastinating. Don’t let the guilt get to you if it isn’t procrastination. There’s nothing to be guilty about. Just start.

I hope someone found this helpful. If I was confusing, very sorry. Send me any questions and I’ll do my best to answer (and perhaps not put that off).

Also, the link to the podcast if you want to listen to the whole thing from an actual expert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGIUtVu7w4Y

Thanks for sticking this long, and I hope you have a great week! 😁 

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