One chill Saturday afternoon, we were lazing off and killing time just watching TV. But Adventure Time was taking a really long time to air on Cartoon Network. Who wouldn’t get crabby waiting? So we surfed the channels instead and eventually settled on National Geographic Channel — because we’re cerebral like that lels — where a segment was discussing the notion of delay. Or should that be delay with a capital D?
Anyway. This host was arguing for the positive side of delaying something — a task, a decision, a pledge, whathaveyou. He even said it’s one of the secret ingredients to success. I was like, whatever happened to the proverbial carpe that fvcking diem? And I did not just ask a rhetorical question for the third time, did I? Whoops. That makes a fourth.
ANYWAY.
What really struck me curious was when he equated this “delay” with procrastination. Now, there is a widely held notion that procrastinating is bad for your health, but there he was saying otherwise. He justified his argument by enumerating circumstances that support the claim that not always striking while the iron is hot may prove to be wiser in the end.
For instance, star tennis player Roger Federer’s physical skills and prowess aside, his mental trait of not making an impulse move and instead waiting until the very last minute to decide a better one is what makes him a superb player. Similarly, discretionary stockbrokers in Wall Street should (maybe) not immediately sell a stock the moment its value falls. Who knows if it will skyrocket again in the next five minutes?
But of course, these are very specific situations and they focus specifically on timing, now that I think about it.
Still, this sheds light on the thesis statement: delay as a strategy.
One critical thing to note at this point is that delay can be effectively used as a strategy. Intentional delay, or “structured procrastination,” as John R. Perry phrased it, is an art. Mr Perry delves deep into the subject in his book entitled The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing.
Some nuggets of insight from Mr Perry:
All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing.
The procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important. Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact.
The list of tasks one has in mind will be ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list.
So whenever you find yourself racking your brain trying to justify why you’re not yet doing what you’re supposed to be doing, then that’s okay. There is an upside to that: You can always find something else to do that will somehow make you one step closer to accomplishing what you’ve been trying not to accomplish. Not yet ready for that one big project? Then do the little projects first — just see to it that they all add up to that one big goblin of a to-do. By breaking down your one big to-do into smaller to-dos, you’re also able to immediately identify which to prioritize on the list.
This is the kind of procrastination that is not mere task avoidance, not plain laziness. It is manipulation of the use of time. It harnesses one’s creative skill and imagination to do so. Precisely why it’s called an art.
WILD WILD HEART 