Wikipedia defines procrastination as: “the act of replacing high-priority actions with
tasks of lower priority, or doing something from which one derives enjoyment
and thus putting off important tasks to a later time”
What Wikipedia fails to
mention, is that there is an art to procrastination which only few can master.
I for one can officially consider myself the queen of procrastination. My
manager once gave me a book to read which was supposed to help me fight this
habit “the on- time on-target manager” by Ken Blanchard, it remained on my
nightstand and I kept delaying reading it till it became part of the décor.
Keep in mind that I’ve wanted
to post this for the past 8 months. Here are the guidelines to mastering the
art of procrastination in a brief list, an intro to procrastination if you
want:
- A true procrastinator never starts a task unless there is less than 1 hour to the submission deadline
- A true procrastinator reaches his/her peak of time-wasting creativity when the actual work load is at its maximum
- A true procrastinator knows in the back of his/her head that they should get started with work but their brain simply ignores the command; most importantly, they don’t feel bad about ignoring it
- A true procrastinator is a brilliant excuse-for-not-working generator. They are so good, they believe their own excuses
- A true procrastinator spends so much time online that they are always up to date about all world events
- A true procrastinator shall check social media websites at least twice every 30 minutes and spend a minimum of 5 minutes each time
- A true procrastinator will watch all viral videos posted online
- A true procrastinator will be subscribed to at least 3 websites dedicated to useless internet humor and findings such as 9gag.com; stumbleupon.com and thefancy.com
- A true procrastinator can spend 3 days working on improving a process that was working fine anyway rather than doing what they are supposed to be doing
- A true procrastinator always nags about the load of work they have
- A true procrastinator will always ask for at least 1 week deadline from today to complete the task, regardless of how simple the task is
- A true procrastinator loves to-do-lists. They just do
- A true procrastinator will start smoking just because it’s an excuse to waste 5mn each time
- A true procrastinator has a maximum attention span of 15 minutes on a good day
Most importantly, qualities without which one can never be a
successful procrastinator:
- A True procrastinator has the capacity to accomplish brilliant work under extreme pressure. The submitted work shall be completed in record time, seconds before the deadline but will still have all required content, good attention to layout and a twist of genius
I don’t pride myself in being a procrastinator, but I have
learned to live with it, ignore the urge to waste time (most days) and set
tighter deadlines to force myself to get things done.
You can consider me as addicted to deadlines, and the
adrenaline that last minute rush creates. The important thing is to get the
work done properly and on time, procrastinating or not, it doesn’t matter
anyway.
