If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done – Rita Mae Brown
Positive Procrastination, also known as structured procrastination, has many balanced benefits. Positive Procrastination can help you focus, be more creative, and make better decisions while increasing productivity. Procrastination is often seen as, and associated with a negative use of time. Procrastination can become a positive and structured habit instead of a negative and unstructured habit. The key to unlocking positive procrastination habits is in understanding how to structure procrastination, which in turn can help decrease stress and increase self-confidence, balance, and efficiency.
According to the Psychology Today, “Procrastination Can Be a Positive Experience” ! This informative article states that , “Procrastination shines light on what’s most important to you.” The article, written by Rita Watson, went on to highlight that “You’re less likely to procrastinate on things you love to do or that really matter to you. If there’s something you’re struggling to get done, ask yourself why you’re doing it in the first place. Purpose and passion will help you overcome any procrastination hurdle—or make you realize that you’re procrastinating because you’re working on the wrong thing.”
Procrastination is defined as the act of delaying or postponing something. Often this act of delaying or postponing can be interpreted as a sign of fear, laziness, and/or avoidance behavior. While this may be true in some cases, in other cases the act of procrastinating can also be interpreted as the act of finding balance in the many unbalanced days of life.
“Believe It or not, There’s a Smart Way to Procrastinate” quoted psychologist Dr. Josh Klapow as saying “the key to using procrastination to your advantage is to take an active approach instead of a passive one.” Dr. Klapow went on to state that ““If you plan your procrastination with an honest understanding of why you are delaying [your task] and a realistic, exact day and time allocation [for completing it], then you can simply enjoy the time off you give yourself in the delay”.
It’s a beautiful life now has compiled a list of ways to actively approach and learn “How to Be a Positive Procrastinator”, taking a look at the many positive aspects and outcomes of procrastination in the hopes that procrastinators near and far will be inspired and perhaps learn, grow, and embrace how to be a positive procrastinator!
Create a productive environment: Certain environments encourage productivity while other environments inhibit productivity. Learning what works in regards to productivity is an important aspect of moving toward positive procrastination. Honest self- reflection, learning what inhibits personal productivity, and removing distractions are a few ways to create a positive and productive environment. Being strategic about time and productivity by booking important deadlines and tasks in a calendar is part of creating an environment that produces productivity and reduces the actions that inhibit being productive. Strategically booking time in a calendar to do tasks closer to the deadline leaves time to focus on smaller but more urgent things in the present.
Create to do list & schedule, then commit: Write down everything. Determine which tasks are urgent. Determine which tasks can wait. Schedule tasks accordingly from urgent to non urgent. Focus first on scheduling short term urgent tasks. Schedule more important tasks long term in a calendar. Break down overwhelming tasks into manageable pieces. Schedule down time.
In the initial stages commit to only getting a little bit done as an initial step. Implementing these steps will aide in creating a more structured environment.
Psychology Today promoted active procrastination as having positive outcomes in their article entitled “6 Reasons Why Procrastination Can Be Good for You” .
The article states that “active procrastination helps to get more things done, makes unnecessary tasks disappear, and can help in more productive decision making.”
The article, written by Susanna Newsonen goes on to encourage embracing active procrastination in order to start doing the things that are important in life. Being an active procrastinator is another way to embrace being a positive procrastinator.
Reward yourself: In an article published by the New York Times entitled “4 Ways to Use Goals to Beat Procrastination”, regular rewards throughout accomplishing goals are more effective than one big reward at the end of the task. According to the article, “Associating the reward with the final goal is not going to help you when you’re unmotivated sometime in the early stages or in the middle of the project (task). To better endure periods of boredom and discomfort, we need to regularly reward our accomplishments.” The article goes on to state that, “Instead of only rewarding ourselves at the end of a task, the trick is to also reward our progress along the way. This way, we shift focus from rewarding the final product to rewarding the performance itself. Through combining effort and rewards we can learn to associate work with something desirable.”
Develop self-compassion & Mindfulness: Self-compassion, common humanity, and mindfulness are ways of relating to ones self and the world with positive expectations. Self-compassion goes hand in hand with positive procrastination. Being kind, rather than critical is a helpful way to move faster towards accomplishing a task and further away from the negative thoughts that will ultimately block the task from getting done. Being kind to yourself and realizing common humanity also helps in recognizing that imperfection is a human experience that is shared by everyone everywhere in the world.
Mindfulness is a productive practice that can help with self compassion and connecting through common humanity. Check out our article on mindfulness meditation entitled “7 Reasons to Begin a Mindfulness Meditation Practice Today” to help develop and enhance mindfulness.
Build a social support A social support network is a group of people that can be relied on to give emotional, informational, and practical help. A social support network can be beneficial when it comes to reducing procrastination. A social support network can help motivation and the setting of realistic expectations. Social and positive peer support coupled with self-compassion can lead to more productive goal setting and personal accomplishments when practicing positive procrastination.
