Is Procrastination Your Friend or Foe?
I’ve been procrastinating again, it’s been a few days since my last article and I felt I should be writing. In the back of my conscious mind, like a nagging blister waiting to be popped, have been the words, “get on with your next article”. So is procrastination a friend or foe?
To be fair, I’ve had other things to do, like making changes to my website layout and reading the book I’ve been sent to review.
Oh yeah, and other really important stuff, like surfing the web, reading just about anything and everything, as long as it wasn’t writing my next article.
Procrastination has well and truly been my bedfellow this week, while giving in to its laissez-faire and ponderous attitude, I feel I’ve become comfortable when it’s around.
Here am I talking about procrastination, like it’s some separate entity from myself, and not part of me at all. Isn’t procrastination just a natural state that we find ourselves in from time to time?
Procrastination peril
Procrastination has a negative reputation and is seen as something to avoid at all costs, should it divert us from our intended path and cause passive mayhem in our productive lives. Procrastination is synonymous with that wayward cousin we all have, who’s a lot of fun, but who’ll get you into a shit load of trouble if you hang out with them too long.
If you search online for procrastination you can find anything from, it being cited as merely counterproductive, to symptomatic of an underlying psychological disorder. Wow!
Is procrastination such a big deal? If I look at procrastination with my intuitive self, I can see it’s just another part of my inner guidance system that I utilise to determine my current state of mind. For me, procrastination is a process used by my subconscious mind to communicate with my conscious mind, so shouldn’t I be listening to that?
In the few days prior to me writing this article I felt the onset of procrastination. I gave it its due and listened to what it was revealing to me. As I’ve just started this website I have, to date, very few articles published online, so I am obviously eager to write and get as much information and articles published as possible.
However, I don’t write articles just to get them published or write to a set time frame, I write when I am inspired to do so, about a subject which I feel, rather than think about. Could it be possible, that I felt I was procrastinating, but was in fact just not ready to write an article at that time, and with procrastination being a tool used by my subconscious, was my conscious mind in direct opposition with my more intuitive subconscious mind?
Maybe I was supposed to spend those few days reading books and playing with my website layout. Who’s to say this wasn’t my real and intended path for that specific period, and writing an article was to come after this?
Sometimes we just need to chill
I think we all get wrapped up in the furore of being seen to be spending our time constructively, and when we are doing what may seem like, not a great deal, we feel we have to consciously rectify this and get productive. Feelings of guilt, anxiety and self-loathing are usually the inspiring factors in this spur for productivity, yet, sometimes we need that tranquil state procrastination can bring.
You may have come across this article whilst looking for the rhyme and reason for your own procrastination. If that’s the case, there may be other causes for your feeling state right now, but seeing as you are procrastinating and you’re not doing much else at the moment, why not seize this opportunity by exploring the possible motivations (pardon the pun) underlying your current state.
Listen to your own inner guidance system, it can only serve you positively. Maybe you feel you never procrastinate, well that’s okay too.
What I’m trying to convey is, if it’s happening to you and you experience procrastination, don’t immediately feel that there must be something wrong with you, just go with it and explore what it means for you at that time.
Granted, procrastination can be indicative of more serious and underlying issues but on the whole the majority of us will experience it just because we all do at some time in our lives.
Don’t beat yourself up about it, procrastination is a NORMAL state to experience, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re lazy, unmotivated, anxious, a defeatist, have low self-worth, are stressed or are shirking your responsibilities.
More often than not it’s your inner being trying to communicate with your conscious mind. Have that conversation, you never know, you might learn something wonderful about yourself.
If you’re still avoiding doing what you feel you should be doing, take a look at this Ted Talk from Tim Urban on Procrastination.