It is impossible to prove that at least one person, one human being, has never procrastinated at least once in their lifetime. Whether you hate to admit it or not, procrastination is something that we’re all guilty of, and happens to the majority of us.
But what if it isn’t something to be guilty of? Due to popular belief, procrastination has always been seen as something that is unwanted, frustrating and ultimately demotivating. On the contrary, what if we looked at a new side of things, and shed some light on the potential benefits that come with us putting off certain tasks throughout the day?
Although it may be hard to believe, some extremely positive aspects can come out of setting your work aside, and leaving it for another time. At the time, this may seem very inconvenient and frustrating; however by doing this, we are able to generate ideas in the back of our minds with regards to how we will complete the task when we return to it.
Believe it or not, I had a lot of trouble generating ideas for this article. Every time I sat in front of a blank document, I couldn’t bring myself to start writing - writer’s block, as some would say. None of the ideas I had thought of seemed worthy enough to write a full article on, so I kept putting it off. Now, the weekend before it is due, I find myself writing about the benefits of the very thing that I struggled with. This may seem strange, but the important takeaway from this experience is that sometimes procrastination can bring along new and brighter ideas. You may even find yourself having epiphany moments at times, where you think of an idea that is so incentivising to start on that you feel fresh and newly motivated to start working immediately.
An additional bonus that people may find procrastination brings, is that it is better to leave the task, instead of forcing yourself into it when you could potentially do a much better job of it at another time. Having the right mindset and headspace should be your top priority when completing important tasks, and sometimes it is better to give yourself a small break, instead of trying to complete the task the day it is set, not to mention after a long day of school.
People are productive at different times of day; some prefer working in the mornings, while others find themselves being most productive towards the later hours of the evening or night. It is important to realise that each one of us have varying preferences when it comes to completing certain tasks, so you don’t build up unnecessary pressure when you see others working while you are not. By forcing yourself into certain tasks, a new and unhelpful headspace forms that convinces you that what you’re doing is a chore, and you aren’t benefitting from doing it at all. This could change in an instant, however, if you took a step back, and truly realised that people have different preferences when it comes to their own productive times of day, and that it is impossible to be fully efficient during all twelve hours of the day.
When it comes to downtime, science suggests that humans need around four to five hours of free time per day. Now think about how many hours you get per day. Less? Or is it more? The key takeaway from this is that despite your extremely busy schedule, it is healthy to factor in downtime throughout the day, so that you are not burying yourself under a pile of work. Instead, you could be evenly spacing it out with regular breaks in between.
Being a person that likes to get work done as soon as it is set, I find myself under constant pressure to get tasks done so that I do not find myself worrying about them later. Now I have taken time to realise that it is unnecessary to constantly worry about when and how I am going to get things done, because it sometimes works out in the end, and in the long term I manage to keep on track with everything I am supposed to be doing. Even if it does tend to lead up to the last minute sometimes, this teaches us a lesson of time management, and how to evenly space out work throughout the week so that it leaves us with the free time that we need every day. In the end, procrastination is all part of human nature, and even without realising it, it can bring along better ideas that we didn’t even know we had in us.
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