The argument that procrastination can pay off is being voiced increasingly, despite its negative stigma. To succeed, some say, it may be to your advantage to put off some of your tasks for later. Consider these suggestions for when and how you should do it.

Maybe you put off filing your tax returns. Or you dilly-dally in mailing your bills until you pick up stamps. Perhaps you avoid exercising “until after the holidays” or start New Year resolutions after you file those tax returns…which you put off until after vacation. Maybe you delayed wrapping up this project for that project, due to the overwhelming nature of the former. The situations where procrastination can hinder you are endless. And deviating from this behavior requires discipline and work.

But why deviate at all?

Despite procrastination’s negative stigma — it is, of course, veeeerrry low on most people’s business qualities — an argument that it can pay off is increasingly being voiced. Once in a while, procrastination may be the best course of action. To succeed, some say, it may be to your advantage to delay some things.

“This simple act can help us set priorities and give each task the attention it deserves,” Entrepreneur magazine recently noted. “Putting tasks off can raise our energy and free our minds to help us see opportunities where others perceive obstacles.”

However, first you must know when to shuffle the immediacy of tasks on your “to do” list. According to Machinery & Equipment MRO recently, a few instances when procrastination may be a good habit are when:

• You’re facing a huge project and you’re unsure where to begin.
If you have a big task in front of you — whether it’s unfamiliar, complex or just plain difficult — let it sit for a short period until you have a real plan of attack.

• You’re tired.
Perhaps you just completed another big project or you’ve had a busy schedule for the past few weeks. You may be better off taking it easy for a bit. In the meantime, visualize the project successfully completed, as this can help energize you.

• You’re facing vague expectation.
Your idea of how a project should turn out should align with the ideal outcome of that of your peers or customers. Wait until you have feedback from them.

• You’re charged with completing a creative project.
Creative projects might include written or visual works, displays, themes or other original work that describes or promotes something your business is doing. Because creative work doesn’t always come easily when it’s forced, let the project “incubate.” Think about it effortlessly from time to time, and chances are you’ll come up with the right approach in a matter of days or weeks.

• Others have tried a similar task before…unsatisfactorily.
If this is the case, hold off — and listen to the experiences of those who have already tried

• The task is considered low priority.
If your task isn’t really that important, hold off and you may find that the nature of the task will be altered later or that someone else picks it up.

• You’re preoccupied with other activities.
If you are tending to other matters, it might be best to first complete them, even if your upcoming project is critical. Strike as many items off your regular “to do” list as possible. And ponder the upcoming task as you’re completing those other activities.

• You’re not in control of resources.
If you don’t have the people, equipment and data necessary to make the task happen, you’re wasting time on this project — time that could be better spent on substantive tasks. If during your procrastination period you can garner the support and resources you need, the project should achieve better results in the end.

All of this suggests there is both good procrastination and bad procrastination. Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work: the absent-minded professor who forgoes shaving for something more important, for instance; working on something substantive before you begin work that has little potential for optimal process and result.

In his famous seminar entitled “You and Your Research” at a Bell Communications Research Colloquium Series in 1986, Dr. Richard W. Hamming, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and a retired Bell Labs scientist, suggested that you ask yourself three questions when individually doing work:

1. What are the most important problems in your field?
2. Are you working on one of them?
3. If not, why not?

Really, these are questions any ambitious person should face. To do work well, you need to do more than find good projects. Once you’ve found them, you have to get yourself to work on them, and that can be difficult, even daunting; the bigger the problem, the harder it is to get yourself started.

The challenge is procrastinating on the right errands or tasks and then releasing unnecessary guilt associated with putting them off. It’s inevitable that someone doing the best work he or she can is going to leave a lot of things undone. If a solution to a project or challenge does not present itself immediately, as Entrepreneur pointed out, it may be more productive to “put it aside rather than spend valuable time vacillating over what to do next.” Let your mind think through solutions while you complete other work. It seems like a mistake to feel bad about that.

But you really shouldn’t wait so long to fill out your tax returns or begin a new exercise regimen. That’s just trouble.

Resources

When Procrastinating Can Pay Off
by Romanus Wolter
Entrepreneur, September 2006

Troubled by Procrastination?
by Richard G. Ensman, Jr.
Machinery & Equipment MRO, June 2006

Additional

Good and Bad Procrastination
by Paul Graham
PaulGraham.com, December 2005