Active vs. Passive Procrastination: How to Use Your Procrastination to Improve Productivity
Everybody procrastinates from time to time, and most of us are always trying to find ways to procrastinate less. Procrastination is, for the most part, an inherently unproductive action. The basic idea is to avoid or delay a task, usually an unpleasant one, which hurts you in two main ways:
- You compromise your ability to complete the task. In some cases, the task gets harder to complete when you procrastinate; for example, you may have fewer options if you wait longer to complete the task, or you may have less time and fewer resources to work with.
- You waste time. The time you spend waiting, agonizing, or simply staring at a blank screen is essentially wasted.
It makes sense. And the statistics imply that procrastination is a serious problem; 95% of people are at least occasional procrastinators, with 20% of us chronically procrastinating. And 40% of us have experienced significant financial loss due to procrastination.
But even understanding all that, can procrastination actually be good for productivity?
You might be surprised to learn that procrastination is a more complex phenomenon than most people realize.
Active Procrastination vs. Passive Procrastination
First, we need to clarify the difference between what I’ll call “active” procrastination and “passive” procrastination. In passive, or traditional procrastination, you’ll avoid or delay a task in favor of something unproductive; you may twiddle your thumbs, browse social media, or have a conversation with someone you know. But in active procrastination, you’ll avoid or delay a task by working on a different task.
In this way, you’ll simply be rearranging your schedule, never reducing what you can get done in a given day or a given week. If you’re filling the void with productive work, you can consider your procrastination to be at least “productivity neutral.”
Delaying a Task for Productivity Value
It’s also possible to delay a task, not because you’re lazy or because you’re wasting time, but because you’ll be able to complete the task more efficiently if you delay it.
Consider these situations:
- You’re a night owl. Research shows that some people are naturally more productive at different peak hours throughout the day, due to genetic factors. If you’re a night owl, who reaches peak focus and energy in the evening, it may make sense to avoid a task until those hours arrive.
- You don’t have enough information. You may also delay a task if you don’t yet have all the information necessary to complete it. Otherwise, you may make a mistake and be forced to backtrack when more information comes in.
- Your full team isn’t here. If the task is collaborative and your best team members are out or busy with other projects, it may make sense to wait until the entire team is together.
In any of these scenarios, procrastination can help you get the task done in fewer hours, with higher overall quality.
Procrastination and Prioritization
Procrastination can also help you reveal what your real priorities are. For this, you’ll need a bit of introspection. You’re procrastinating something actively—ask yourself why.
Is it because this is something outside your normal area of expertise? If so, is there a way to delegate it in favor of something within your skill set? Is it because you don’t think it’s very important? If so, is there a way to avoid it entirely?
Additionally, procrastination can help you identify tasks that didn’t really need to be done. For example, if your boss asks you to complete a report, but a day or two later, it stops getting mentioned in conversation, it could be that the report never really “needed” to be completed.
Obviously, you’ll need to be careful with this angle, but after a few days—or even a few hours—you could have an entirely different perspective on how important the task truly is.
Procrastination as an Emotional Delay
The passage of time has a way of evening out our strongest emotions. If you feel angry, chances are you’ll feel less angry in a few hours, and even less angry in a day or two. If you’re afraid of something, you’ll be less afraid after you’ve had some time to process it.
Because emotional decisions and emotional replies can work against us, procrastination can also be a tool for our benefit if it’s used for emotional management. Go ahead and delay that angry email or that reckless decision; it can only be good for you in the long run.
Make Procrastination Work for You
Procrastination can be a productivity killer, but it doesn’t have to be—and it’s certainly not a bad thing in all situations. The more aware you are of your habits, the more you can turn procrastination to your advantage. Use it wisely, and it can ultimately make you more productive.
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