Hi all!
Let’s start this week’s newsletter off with a tale of moving in.
First of all, no matter how exciting and great a new apartment is (and I’m thrilled with ours)… moving sucks.
Perhaps you think you only have a meager amount of furniture (not so, apparently I have tons of shoes and books and more ugly duffel bags that one person could ever use in their life).
Perhaps you think hiring movers will help (yes, but only up to the point they tell you they can’t assume the liability of assembling furniture since they didn’t disassemble it in the first place)…
Perhaps you think having two people (who allegedly like each other) work together to build and unpack everything will enable the job to be done swiftly and seamlessly within hours of getting the keys. (….. only if both people see the value in getting everything done immediately.) 😑
I’ve been planning for moving in for months now - mocking up layouts and furniture, scouting out furniture, planning for delayed shipping times… basically doing everything weeks in advance, because I like things to be done immediately. Procrastination is a somewhat foreign concept to me, and I make lists everyday so that I can check things off in short order. Planning gives me comfort, and leaving things undone for extended periods of time gives me anxiety (who can relate!!?)
Many of my friends and colleagues share this trait. In fact I always thought procrastination was a trait that successful, driven people shunned.
But two of my closest relationships (my significant other, and now housemate!) and one of my best friends are notorious procrastinators. Getting things done (plans, tasks, projects) alongside someone who is comfortable waiting longer to start their work is possibly the most frustrating thing ever. We’re talking literally hundreds of eye rolls, exasperated tantrums and full out fights to see eye to eye.
I think you’d expect a newsletter on career optimization to give you tips on how to “beat procrastination”, how to hold yourself accountable, and how to whip yourself into shape. But through these relationships with people I love (most of the time), I’m learning to examine and embrace different types of procrastination and see their value.
And maybe my etymology is wrong, because I tend to group all of the following concepts together with the concept of procrastination:
“Prudence, patience, and prioritizing all have elements of delay, yet none means the same as procrastination” - excerpt from “The Procrastination Equation”, written by Piers Steel, a professor at the University of Calgary, my alma mater.
There is probably an optimal balance of getting things done quickly vs. waiting to the last minute that largely depends on the intention behind it. An obsessive person who does everything immediately is likely as *dysfunctional* as an avoidant person who puts everything off.
So when can procrastination, or delay be valuable? Will explore that below.
As procrastinating pertains to moving in? Turns out that waiting until we were fully moved in to start ordering furniture and designing the space would have been beneficial: Rugs are the wrong size and colour for the room, I’m waffling on certain choices, we’re going to end up getting rid of stuff that would have been easier to get rid of if we had just left it all packed up, the table is too big for the entryway… the list goes on.
The Benefits of Procrastinating
A very timely experience in learning the value of procrastination: writing this newsletter.
During periods of Covid quarantine this year, I had ample time to thoroughly plan a content calendar out for many weeks. I had drafts prepared of future topics, premade Instagram posts… I felt very prepared.
Then the world opened back up and life caught up with me and honestly, I burned through my backlog of ideas and posts. Now, sometimes (aka, right now) I write at the very last minute.
Yes, I’m writing a post about procrastinating, 10 hours before I typically push the newsletter out…
At first, it gave me great comfort to know that I had 3-4 weeks of material planned out in advance. And to be fair, if I didn’t have a reserve of ideas built up, I might never have felt confident enough to start the newsletter in the first place.
Now that certain parts of life have returned to a more active cadence (work travel, in person meetings and travel time, being able to see more friends and social activities), I’ll admit that maintaining the newsletter is sometimes a last minute exercise.
I definitely worry that by not having a prewritten outline or content calendar, certain posts will read as thrown together, but I’ve also discovered a few positive things about writing at the last minute:
When I write about things in real-time, under time pressure, I usually end up writing about what I’m currently thinking hard about, not something I preplanned weeks in advance. Often this comes across as more authentic and detailed because I’m so actively immersed in it
The right kind of procrastination can fuel creativity - without choosing an idea right away and sticking to it, it lets me ruminate over small starts to ideas overa few weeks, evaluating which ideas are strong and interesting, or which ones have legs
Getting distracted by other things along the way. Last week, I intended to write an extension of goal setting newsletter from the week before. But I went off on a tangent on hiring (and CSI!) , because that was taking up a lot of my brainspace, and it turned out I had a lot to write about on the topic
Apparently, this is a type of procrastination called Active Procrastination, which has a positive connotation, is ‘planned’ and
More research on Active Procrastination here
Why people procrastinate (and it’s not laziness)
Procrastination is often associated with being or not managing one’s time well. But it turns out, doing things later has its roots in psychology, and emotional regulation.
A study by a professor at the University of Ottawa (shoutout to Canadian universities!) found that procrastination is about being more focused on “the immediate urgency of managing negative moods” than getting on with the task.
Aversion in doing a task may be related to the nature of the task (truly something we don’t want to do), but it may also be about our deeper feelings on relating to the task (we’re worried we won’t be good at it, we’ll feel overwhelmed in doing it)
I always thought that being impatient and wanting to get sh*t done was a perfectionist trait. But it turns out perfectionism can manifest as procrastination as well - by procrastinating, you have the most control over whatever task you’re working on and there’s no risk it can go wrong
You know when you’re out with friends having one too many drinks, and you know you have an early flight tomorrow, and you say jokingly, “That’s future Janice’s problem”.. turns out, on a neural level, we actually perceive of our future selves as foreign. (This paper talks about the psychological determinants of undersaving for people’s financial future - present awards are more arousing, and people have a very hard time projecting their feelings into a future state
In short, if we avoid the type of procrastination that’s linked to shame, angst, and anxiety, giving ourselves more time to come to a solution can actually improve creativity, enable us to gather more data or take needed rest in order to start thinking seriously again closer to the deadline. It can create urgency or focus in a situation that brings our most pressing emotions/thoughts and ideas to the forefront.
Resources and Links
“The Procrastination Equation” by Piers Steel, Professor at the University of Calgary (my university!) I had no idea before doing some research for the newsletter that he is renowned internationally as an authority on the topic of procrastination
Cool Ladies Doing Cool Things: “The Poetic Justice of Amanda Gorman’s Estee Lauder Contract” the 23-year-old poet who read her work “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration turned down millions of dollars of offers in promotional opportunities before signing with Estee Lauder. Not only will she appear in ad campaigns and speaking events, but also work with the company on the corporate level to create Writing Change, a set of grants worth $3 million to promote literacy among girls and women (NYTimes)