The world seems truly obsessed with eradicating procrastination (“the action of delaying or postponing something”). Countless productivity blog posts, books and talks constantly remind us how precious time is and that we are doomed if we end up being a… god forbid… procrastinator.
And to some extend I get it. I, myself, am constantly trying to squeeze more efficiency and effectiveness out of my working life (that might also be the German in me).
But on the other hand I have learned that procrastination, or probably more precisely the act of not doing something is often paramount to digest larger amounts of information and make longer term or further reaching decisions.
As a practice, when I work on bigger and complex initiatives, I tend to work in bursts — a couple of days of high activity where I make every effort to push the ball forward are followed by a couple of days where I don’t touch the project, even try to not think about it all that much. Rather I let my mind (both the conscious and the unconscious) digest what I put in front of it. And lo and behold — I regularly come to some breakthroughs after days of, quite literally, procrastinating on the project.
That is all to say: Don’t be too hard on yourself when it comes to not doing what you think you should do in the moment. Sometimes it is truly what is needed…
What is your practice?