How to Procrastinate (The Right Way)

I thought of writing a blog post on “How to Not Procrastinate”, but I’ve seen so many of them.

So I decided to go devil’s advocate and write about how to procrastinate… at least in the right way.

It took me some time to realize that procrastination is not always “one more episode”, or “just 5 minutes on social media”. Sometimes it is when we do a low value task (such as cleaning or doing emails) over a high value task (such as a big project) because it tricks our mind into thinking that we are being productive (and not procrastinating at all).

Procrastination can also be just starting the day with doing all the small tasks on our to-do-list because it feels good to tick stuff off. Then what ends up happening is that we put off our most important tasks for later on when we have less energy and focus.

And procrastination can be that we put off the low value and small tasks until later on in the day to work on the bigger and more important tasks first.

So pretty much, everyone does procrastinate. The question is, how effectively do we procrastinate?

It was a bit unusual to think about at first, that there is actually a way to procrastinate correctly. That procrastination can actually help us be more productive. That it actually can be a really effective tool.

This procrastination is called creative procrastination.

Creative Procrastination

I mentioned creative procrastination briefly as one of the five ways to enhance productivity (one of the blog posts).

The truth is, I am still trying to keep working on reminding myself that we can’t do everything that we have to do in one day. Therefore, there is always something that we have to procrastinate on.

How we can procrastinate correctly is that instead of procrastinating on the big important tasks for the day, we procrastinate on the low value tasks.

I know that I used to procrastinate on my uni assignments by cleaning my room or checking my emails. Even though it wasn’t social media, random internet scrolling, or Netflix episodes, I was still procrastinating. Doing those low value tasks tricked my mind into thinking that I wasn’t procrastinating.

So ironically, to resolve this situation I still had to procrastinate… but procrastinate on different tasks.

Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy had mentioned to put off those smaller tasks (those less ugly frogs). We procrastinate those tasks so that we can work on the bigger and more important tasks we have to do.

This meant for me that I would procrastinate my emails and cleaning my room for later on in the day. Even though they are not unimportant, it wasn’t going to contribute to my goals in the long run. They weren’t contributing to my progress.

Having Self-Awareness on Our Procrastination

Sometimes we are unaware that we are procrastinating. Sometimes we are unaware that our procrastination could eventually lead to long-term circumstances. One day of unconscious procrastination may not impact much, but when done over a longer period of time, then we may end up seeing the consequences.

I know that I have found myself in a situation where I was unconsciously procrastinating on one of my uni assignments. One day of procrastinating on it was fine, but then over a period of time up until the due date, that’s when I realized what I had done.

Ironically, we can use procrastination to resolve the procrastination – we deliberately can procrastinate on those small tasks so that we can have more time for those bigger tasks that can give bigger positive results in our lives.

We can use procrastination to become self-aware on what we need to do. We become self-aware on those activities that are time-consuming and don’t really make a difference to our lives.

I know that I cut down a few hobbies in the past where it was extremely time consuming and took time away from my other priorities. It took me some time to practice being self-aware of all my habits and evaluate whether they were actually contributing to my goals or not.

How We Can Practice Creative Procrastination

On top of being self-aware of our activities, there are a few ways to procrastinate the right way:

1. Keep note of the activities that we do and evaluate whether they contribute to our goals and priorities – are the activities actually making us productive, or tricking our mind into thinking that we are productive?
2. Still keep a to-do list but mark down which tasks to work on first and which one to procrastinate on – for example, checking emails is important, but working on that big project is the more important task, we mark down which one needs time and focus, and which one can be rushed.
3. Start with one small area at a time – I know that there were plenty of times when I tried to implement every new thing I learn, or begin a number of habits, but then it becomes hard to keep track of them all and I let all of them go. I found it more beneficial when I just started with one small area instead and then only move on to the next once I mastered it.

Ultimately, to practice procrastination the right way is to become more intentional and self-aware of all our activities. It may sound a bit simple, but even small changes can help save a huge amount of time.

And just imagine how much work we can get done faster or more effectively if we just have even just a little bit of extra time on our hands.

Book(s) this post was inspired by:

(not sponsored in anyway!)

• Eat that Frog – Brian Tracy

Disclaimer: If you think that any of what I had written was good, the credit actually belongs to the one whose book was the inspiration for this post. If there’s anything on here that you think is quite stupid, that’s 100% blame on me 🙂

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