My view and judgements on procrastination has shifted over the last year and I’m becoming more increasingly aware of my tendency to delay or postpone certain tasks until pressure builds up.

My observation is that sometimes for certain projects or tasks I put it off until (more or less) the very last minute.

One example might be: it’s Monday morning and I have some report I need to send out by end of week and I wait until Friday morning to even begin. Then all at once, I complete the task — mind you, the task itself requires about 15-20 minutes of concentrated effort — often feeling totally drained and exhausted afterwards and above all else, guilty. Whenever I find myself procrastinating, I still try to stay self-compassionate “who doesn’t sometimes procrastinate sometimes?”. And though I want to minimize the negative consequences of procrastination, procrastination in itself is not something I want to completely eliminate.

Here’s why.

I do not believe that procrastination is the problem. It’s not something that needs to be extinguished.

In fact, I believe procrastination has utility and functional in certain circumstances. The act of procrastination allows me to avoid or delay some anticipatory, potential (often yet unaware of) negative emotions. In that way, procrastination serves as a protective mechanism.

Yes — procrastination can become maladaptive. I get that.

But what I’m leaning towards now is to increase my awareness around procrastination and treat the behavior as a signal. A clue. A reminder to check in myself, a moment to pause and breathe, and question: “What’s going on?”

Am I procrastinating because of some perfectionism tendencies? Sometimes I fall into the trap that whatever is I do “needs” to be stellar so that I minimize perceived social rejection. Acceptance.

Am I procrastinating because of the potential boredom accompanying the task? Is it because the task at hand doesn’t provide sufficient stimulus. Boredom is useful and I believe a necessary ingredient to creativity. And more often than not, certain tasks that I believe are boring end up providing stillness and calm.

Am I procrastinating out of fear or anxiety? Sometimes I avoid a task because reality is that there is a negative consequence that follows the task. And at the same time, I realize now (as I’m typing this out) that if there’s going to be a consequence, how about facing it? I don’t always HAVE to front load the negative emotions and immediately pay the price. Because sometimes it is best to defer negative experiences, like if I am lacking sleep and tired and some undesirable behavior would follow as a result of experiencing negative emotions.

In sum, procrastination and I are becoming friends and ultimately I want to increase my awareness of when I’m delaying or deferring something and then, try to leverage one of the skills or toolboxes I’ve either come up on my own or ones that I’ve picked up from others (like from The Waves of Focus online course)