Productive procrastination?

Procrastination is arguably near the top of the world’s most popular occupations.

It has ridiculously high employment, particularly among those aged 15-25.

Unfortunately, instead of providing us with a decent salary and benefits, procrastination tends to have the opposite effect.

We lose time, lose sleep, lose points on our final grades, increase pressure on ourselves, and gain stress.

But to all my fellow procrastinators: all hope is not lost.

Say hello to structured procrastination. In other words, how to effectively procrastinate.

I’m not kidding.

This method is foolproof, according to John R. Perry, the philosophy professor and acclaimed scholar who coined the term.

When we procrastinate, we refrain from performing tasks at the top of our to-do list and instead spend time immersed in comparatively less important duties.

This latter group includes TV shows, Facebook, Youtube, and Xbox, just to name a few.

Or perhaps we’ll read a book we actually want to read, or we’ll do the dishes or clean our rooms in order to avoid beginning a five-page paper due the next day.

It’s not that we procrastinators never do anything. We just tend to do whatever is not at the top of our list of critical tasks to be done.

So all we have to do is a little restructuring.

We make a list of worthwhile tasks, including some that are more important than others.

Then we’ll end up performing one essential job as a way of avoiding another that we have deemed to be more essential.

Basically, we are deceiving ourselves into somehow or another getting things done while still procrastinating.

I’m writing this blog post so I can, for the time being, escape finishing my Art History paper and reading a poem for English.

I avoided doing what needed to be done by being productive.

Hence, effective procrastination.

Comment below and let me know how it works out for you!