Procrastinate Later – The Upside of Procrastination
For many of us it’s easy to put off stuff that we don’t enjoy, OR stuff that has little value to us, OR the hard stuff, OR the important-but-not-screaming-urgent stuff, OR the stuff we do want to do but think it will take too long, OR we are not sure where to start, OR because we don’t want to ask for help OR, because, you know, it’s Thursday.
There are lots of reasons we can find to procrastinate and all of us have likely experienced all of these different “excuses” at some point, however not all procrastination is created equal and in fact, there are different kinds of procrastination.
- First, there’s behavioral procrastination, more familiarly known as putting stuff off you don’t like. This is where you will find my taxes, how I handle cleaning out my basement (unless I’m doing that instead of doing my taxes), or perhaps that difficult conversation with your direct report, boss, or crazy uncle Bob. This is extremely common and what we typically think of when we think about procrastination.
- But then there is strategic procrastination, which occurs when we put something off until later because we know it will be better if we wait. We may need more information, more inspiration, or more insight before we can give it our best effort. Creative ideas, for example, may need incubation time to develop and so we could benefit from not diving in headfirst too quickly.
Now strategic procrastination should not be confused with justified procrastination, otherwise known as hindsight. This is when we waited to act and that (by a fluke of nature) turned out to be the best outcome. You waited and got a better deal; you received new information that could have made your first attempt irrelevant; or in extreme cases (and action movies) – you were late because you put off packing until the last minute and missed your flight and the plane ended up disappearing into a hidden vortex – in which case you can definitely celebrate your packing procrastination!
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the behavioral and justified types of procrastination. These are the ones we strive to fix, the ones that make us feel guilty, the ones we don’t like to fess up to, but we all know we do it!
We make excuses for our procrastination, such as:
- “I’m not ready”
- “It’s not perfect”
- “I have to clean out the basement first”
Strategic Procrastination, however, is something worth considering. Adam Grant, in his TED Talk on Original Thinkers, talks about the benefits of procrastination. I named it “strategic” because it sounds more important and I like to do important stuff (and I like to find legitimate reasons to procrastinate).
There are at least two benefits to strategic procrastination:
- Incubation: Procrastination gives you time to consider divergent ideas, to make unexpected connections, and to think about things differently. Instead of rushing in to make a quick decision you can take time to consider alternatives and make the right decision. This type of strategic procrastination is summed up brilliantly by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin: “You call it procrastination. I call it thinking.”
- Second-Mover Advantage: Second movers (or as Adam Grant calls them, “improvers”) are not first out of the gate with a new product, service, or idea. While first-movers have the ability to create the market, there is also a lot of cost and risk associated with being the first kid on the block. The improvers, however, are able to watch and observe, plan and think, and then introduce something different and better. Grant, in fact, sites a study that found that first-movers had a failure rate of 47% vs. improvers at 8%. A famous example: Blackberry would be considered a first-mover; Apple, the improver. And we all know how that story turned out.
So, while procrastination may be a good strategy sometimes, remember the Wright brothers did not have a pilots’ license! Sometimes you really do just have to get off the runway before everything is perfect, so…
- If you want to start a business you have to start
- If you want to become a speaker you have to speak
- If you want to become a writer you have to write
- If you want to become an artist you have to create
But maybe, just maybe, there are times when we should start… later.
(And full disclosure, I was going to post this on January 1st but I was busy cleaning out my basement.)
