Procrastination. It’s defined as “putting off intentionally and habitually or putting off intentionally the doing of something that should be done” and we all have some kind of experience with it.
My favorite procrastinator, Tim Urban wrote a classic 2013 post on why procrastinators procrastinate that’s funny and smart and full of goofy stick figure cartoons. Even if you’ve read it before, it’s absolutely worth reading again. He also gave an excellent TED Talk on the same subject.
As intelligent and hilarious as he is, I’ll tell you the truth: listening to Urban talk about his procrastination makes my stomach hurt. He writes,
I would do [papers] the night before, until I realized I could just do them through the night, and I did that until I realized I could actually start them in the early morning on the day they were due. This behavior reached caricature levels when I was unable to start writing my 90-page senior thesis until 72 hours before it was due….
Just reading this makes me want to put my head down. The stress of even thinking about leaving everything to the very last minute nauseates me.
Procrastination, to state the obvious, is a form of avoidance. There is a task that we don’t want to do and the solution for a procrastinator is to just not do it – sometimes not until the last possible moment.
I am decidedly not a procrastinator. I’ve actually been a little proud about this for most of my life. I am someone who faces the sticky tasks right away. I am someone who works on what needs doing as soon as I can. I, unlike Tim Urban, am someone who turned in my senior thesis three weeks early.
Yes, that’s me with a puffed up chest and a slow, wise nod.
I thought I am not someone who avoids things.
Until I heard an interview with Adam Grant, professor at the Wharton School of Business specializing in organizational psychology. In his conversation about perfectionism on Ten Percent Happier, Dr. Grant talks about how a fear of not being perfect can lead to avoidance.
Which confused me since I would have said I wrassle with perfectionism (it was why I was listening to the podcast), but I don’t procrastinate. Avoidance isn’t my thing.
Then Dr. Grant shared that he is not a procrastinator but that his avoidance is precrastination. Wait, what? Precrastination is the act of completing tasks as soon as possible even if it costs extra effort or the quality of the outcome deteriorates.
Avoidance, it turns out, comes in lots of flavors. Procrastination is just one of them. Another way of avoiding is to precrastinate, to rush to completion, to check it off the list.
I immediately saw myself in this. Me, the Queen of Get’ ‘er Done (see the aforementioned senior thesis). The Mistress of Delayed Gratification (a kid who ate my least favorite Halloween candy first). The Champ of Knocking it Out Lickety Split...was actually my own kind of avoidance.
Research shows that precrastination is a perhaps surprisingly common approach to all kinds of tasks. You might grab the first parking spot you find at the grocery store even if it means schlepping your bags further. You might spend a lot of time doing less-important, less-impactful tasks because you want to cross stuff off your list. You might go with the first idea you have even if thinking about it more or working on it longer would give you a better result.
Check. Check. And check.
I know that some of the best creative work I’ve done – in the movement studio, at my art table, and in my writing -- is when I’ve given myself time to think about and hone the project rather than rushing to completion.
So whether you are a procrastinator or precrastinator, notice when you are putting off doing something or rushing to do something.
Ask yourself, am I NOT doing something because
(a) I am avoiding or
(b) because I know that letting it percolate will give a better outcome?
Am I DOING something because
(a) I want to get it over with and check the box or
(b) because I know that working on it now will produce something better?
Most of us avoid things that feel unpleasant or potentially unpleasant. It’s completely normal and understandable and is unlikely to give you the best results. Instead, look to the underlying motivation. Check out what your tendencies are. Know your flavor of ‘crastination and make choices from there.