Embracing Procrastination: Why It's Not Always a Bad Thing

Zen Garden (Image by 18121281 from Pixabay

"Hello, my name's Gigi and I'm a Procrasinator".

Seriously... if there was a PA group (Procrastinator's Anonymous), I'd be a card-carrying member for life. I have always held procrastination as a bad thing... or BAD thing.

So much to do, so little time... and I'm scrolling the news on my phone avoiding my to-do list. WTH??? Why am I procrastinating again?? I should have this handled by now?

But I procrastinate. All the time.

And then it came to me... procrastination is NOT a bad thing. It is necessary. We can' escape it. We need to embrace it. We need to make friends with procrastination and see it as a valuable tool in our Life Toolbox.

Ready? Ok... here we go. Let me lay it out.

Time is a Limited Resource

We only have 24 hours in a day. Every single one of us. And out of that, we need to sleep 8 hours (give or take). Which leaves 16 hours to do everything that we need to do in life. That is not a lot of time. So we need to make choices on what we are going to do in any given day. We can't make more time. The only thing we have control over is what we try to squeeze in a day.

We Can't Do it ALL

We can't. Given that time is limited, and energy as well, we can't do it all. It is Impossible. It is physically impossible to go to work for 8 hrs, walk the dog for 2 hrs, watch the kids in the school play for 2 hrs, cook meals for 2 hrs, work on taxes for 2 hrs, clean the Airbnb for 3 hrs, run errands for 2 hrs and work in the garden for 2 hrs... all in the same day. Do the math. It's not possible. Oh sure, you can burn the sleep candle at both ends but for how long?

On some days, my Amazing Marvin to-do system tells me I have 25 hours of tasks scheduled for that day. Um. Let's talk about overwhelm!

Work Faster, Longer, Better is Not a Solution

I think that if I could just work faster, work longer, or work better, more efficiently, that I can get everything done on my to-do list. Society is speeding up, everything is getting faster and faster. There is always more to do. How come everybody else seems able to do more with the same amount of time? What are their secrets? I need to find out! Surely there is a key somewhere that if I just new what it was and where it fit... my life would magically clear up and all would be ease and flow.

More is not always Better. Sometimes Less is More

We can have too much of a good thing. We can volunteer too much. We can take on too much. We can think that we can do more, and more and more but... always we run up against time and energy constraints and the Rule of Life... We can't do it All. Sometimes doing less is... more. 

Procrastination is the Solution

As I said... I have always seen procrastination as a bad thing. But like all things in life, it has a good side and a bad side. Procrastination is not necessarily good or bad, rather it is how we use it. An ax is not good or bad... it's how we use it. Procrastination is just a tool...

And if I use it carelessly, without thought or focus or attention, then I just drift through life, scrolling the news sites and avoiding the problems in my life that just seem too overwhelming. Not today. Tomorrow. I can't deal with this right now. I need chocolate. I need a movie.

But procrastination used mindfully, strategically, can be a very good thing. I only have 8 hours to get stuff done today. What are my priorities. What tasks am I going to focus on. What do I need to defer? Oooohhh... see... good procrastination has a new name... Defer. Or maybe Postpone. A rose by any other name...

I can't get everything I want to get done.... done in one day. I have to defer things, postpone, procrastinate. I have to choose what I am going to work on and say... these things are a "yes" and these things are a "no". For now. For today.

Rather than fighting procrastination, what if I embraced it and used it wisely? Might change things... dramatically.

There are only 24 Hours in a Day

So much to do... so little time
(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)

I know, I know... this is so obvious, why am I even blogging about this?? Wait and see...

So, there are 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. That seems like an awful lot of time. The other obvious thing is that we all have the same amount of hours. No one has invented a time machine yet that can allow us to extend the day and create more hours. We always have the option of getting more space, more money, more stuff. But... more time? Nope, that's impossible.

Oh sure, you can hire someone to do the house-cleaning and yard-work and car maintenance. You can trade in some of your money to claw back a bit of time. But you still run up against that 168 hours a week. There isn't an infinite supply of hours.

Even that 168 is obviously not all that there is to it... Here's where I spend some of my hours in a week. I'm going to split weekdays from weekends because they look very different.

Weekdays - 5 days x 24 hrs = 120 hours available

Let's start with the non-negotiable basics... sleep, eat, a walk...

• 45 hours - 8 hrs of sleep/day and 30 min either side of that for wind-down and getting up
• 5 hours - breakfast - that includes cooking my oatmeal, eating it and washing up
• 5 hours - daily walk with my partner
• 7.5 hours - prep and eat the main meal - sometimes that might go quicker
• 2.5 hours - evening meal - usually more like a snack

Soooo... let me see... that's 65 hours which leaves me with 120-65 = 55 hours. 

Then we have other relatively essential things of daily living...

• 2.5 hours - journaling for about 30 min/day
• 10 hours - contract work
• 2.5 hours - grocery shopping and errands
• 2.5 hours - appointments of various types

And that leaves me with... 37.5 hours or, 7.5 hours/day of "available" hours on a weekday. And of those, 2.5 of those hours are from 6 pm to 8:30 pm which I consider to be generally "not computer time", otherwise I get too much blue light and can't sleep! So, really... I am left with 5 hours during the course of the day, give or take. So, that's 25 hours over the weekday...

Now, let's look at the weekends

Weekends - 2 days x 24 hours = 48 hours available

Again, let's start with the non-negotiable basics... sleep, eat, a walk...

• 18 hours - 8 hrs of sleep/day and 30 min either side of that for wind-down and getting up
• 2 hours - breakfast - that includes cooking my oatmeal, eating it and washing up
• 2 hours - daily walk with my partner
• 3 hours - prep and eat the main meal - sometimes that might go quicker
• 1 hour - evening meal - usually more like a snack

Soooo... let me see... that's 26 hours which leaves me with 48-26 = 22 hours. 

Then we have other relatively essential things of daily living...

• 1 hour - journaling for about 30 min/day
• 6 hours - yard maintenance
• 3 hours - a hike
• 2 hours - house maintenance
• 2 hours - manage household finances
• 1 hour - genealogical research

That leaves me with... 7 hours over 2 days or 3.5 hours a day. Although... right now, for example, there is a LOT of canning taking place, so that sucks up any excess time. Soooo... let's get back to the weekdays, because that's where the struggle is happening right now.

Everything I Want to Do

Right then... so 25 hours seems like a fair bit of time. But it's amazing how it just slips through my fingers without any warning at all. Here are some of the things I want to do in those 25 flex hours in any given week...

• 7.5 hours - write my various blogs - I currently have 3 of them on the go
• 10 hours - write and research my 4th blog (historical research)
• 12.5 hours - work on a book about one of the MI5 guys
• 10 hours - set up direct booking systems for our Airbnb (rental contract, email journey series, auto-payment processor, etc)
• 2.5 hours - manage our Airbnb and the one I co-host - includes tweaking daily and writing weekly IG & FB posts
• 2.5 hours - handle calls and emails

Let's see... I can already see a problem. But let's do the math - that adds up to... 45 hours. Stuffed into 25 hours. Hmmm... me thinks I have a problem with a 20 hour short-fall. I obviously can't do this. There just aren't enough hours in the week.

***taps fingers on table while frowning seriously***

I am eyeing those 2.5 hours every evening - between 6 pm and 8:30 pm... that's 7.5 hours right there. But all of my weekday activities require a computer. Yes, I could probably steal some hours there, but I would pay a big sleep price sooo... alas... that is not going to work. And besides... those are my puzzling hours when I listen to podcasts! Can't cut into the puzzle time... nooooo...

Now, the Airbnb direct booking system won't go on forever. My goal is to have it done within a couple of weeks, so that would free up 10 hours a week... but that still leaves me with a 10 hour shortfall.

The Blogs

Yes, I do have a lot of blogs... I have this one, my DNA blog and my playful bear blog. That's a lot of blogs. Plus... I set myself some fairly hard and fast schedules.

• Small Steps - I had it 3 times a week and have cut it to 2 times a week - I do have a one to two month buffer of pre-posted blogs but... if the buffer runs out, I am up against a wall and it is impossible to keep that pace up week after week, especially since I started the... DNA blog.
• DNA blog - right now, that's once a week... but who says it needs to be that often? Maybe I could go down to once every two weeks?
• Bear blog - I was trying to do that 3 times a week too, and it slipped to twice a week and now it's maybe once a week... if I can squeeze in the time. It's the one that slips off the conveyor belt most often now.
• Historical blog - I had slipped off of this one for over a year and recently started posting weekly again - but perhaps that could be pushed out to every two weeks...

These publishing schedules are all my creation. If I went to once a week with Small Steps... I'd be pre-posted into January, which would create a LOT of breathing room. Maybe I could do the DNA blog every two weeks?

Ultimately, it comes down to this. I need to choose where to spend my time. I can't do it all. It's impossible. And I hate impossible boundaries but... in this case... I really do have to get real and make a choice. I really do want to do this other book and I need to carve out time for that.

Revised - Everything I Want to Do

Alright... 25 hours is the goal... go!

• 1.5 hours - write blogs (DNA blog right now written once a week but pre-posted every 2 weeks to build up a buffer) (reduced from 7.5 hours)
• 2.5 hours - write and research my 4th blog (historical research) - published every 2nd, 3rd or (gasp) 4th week (reduced from 10 hours)
• 5 hours - work on the book about one of the MI5 guys (reduced from 10 hours)
• 10 hours - set up direct booking systems for our Airbnb (rental contract, email journey series, auto-payment processor, etc)
• 2.5 hours - manage our Airbnb and the one I co-host - includes tweaking daily and writing weekly IG & FB posts
• 2.5 hours - handle calls and emails

Ah, this is killing me!! This is 24 hours so I have a flex hour to allocate somewhere. But it is hard to make these choices! I know that once the Airbnb direct booking system is set-up, that will free up some hours but... still...

Could I steal hours from the weekends? Those 7 hours? Maybe... maybe not. I really try to keep things separate and there is already a lot of stuff that gets shoved into the weekends. Plus, I do want to spend some time doing "fun" things... maybe go to a movie with my partner, visit friends, read a book, etc.

Sometimes, there are random bits of time that show up. Maybe meeting didn't go as long as planned, or there weren't any emails or calls to make... and the trick now would be to seize those little 30 minute chunks and turn them into something useful. Through this process, I at least now know where I want to spend them!

Choices are Hard

I am also reminded that small steps are what make the difference. Five hours a week on the new book doesn't seem like a lot but it does add up over the course of a year. Especially if I focus and don't get distracted by other things. I've done a tonne of research for this book, so now it's just pulling things together. I can do this.

For now... this Small Steps blog is going to go to a once a week posting schedule. I am pre-posted well into January, more or less. And hope to keep that schedule going into the future.

So... "for now" this is what I will focus on. I have to keep reminding myself that this isn't forever. This is a temporary deferment and all can be reviewed in 3 months to see where I get to!