Inside Out | Prone to procrastination? You’re in good company with Mozart, Bill Clinton and J.K. Rowling
- It’s not procrastination when it’s a purposeful delay, perfectly understandable in avoiding the unpleasant, and even preferable to the temptation to act, sometimes, such as the US over Taiwan
The modern “work from home” movement, that unanticipated by-product of the global pandemic lockdowns, has brought fresh life and debate to the idea of procrastination.
Can a company that lets its staff work from home retain productivity and remain competitive? Will the distractions implicit in working from home not aggravate the well-recognised tendency for us all to procrastinate? Will the absence of firm work schedules, and the possibility that a boss could pop his or her head around the door at any time, dilute that adrenaline that keeps us focused?
Was Charles Darwin wrong to procrastinate for 20 years before publishing On the Origin of Species? Did he need the time for fresh evidence and discussion over such a disruptive and hotly controversial evolutionary theory? Or was he simply afraid to confront his profoundly religious wife with ideas that would disrupt their marriage?
Can there not be benefits from simply letting ideas stew? Can creative juices not flow more freely in the comfort of home, or while walking a country trail? Might the adrenaline “squeeze” that pushes us up against deadlines play an essential part in producing our best work – making the prior procrastination irrelevant?
Whatever the potential merits of procrastination, and whether it flourishes when we work away from the structured environment of office and colleagues down the corridor, the general view is that it is rather a bad thing, and made worse by the unprecedented amount of entertainment and distraction at our fingertips.