How to Procrastinate

Co-authored by Kelli Miller, LCSW, MSW

Last Updated: November 24, 2024 Approved

Looking to understand why you’re procrastinating? Digging for more interesting ways to kill time? If so, we’ve got you covered. In this article, we’ll help you make sense of why you’re procrastinating, what your procrastination reflects, and how you can procrastinate effectively and interestingly.

1

Consider the upsides.

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Contemplate the reasons that make procrastination a good thing. Time management experts (and a considerable number of bloggers nowadays) insist that procrastination is the worst enemy of mankind, and that allowing it to pervade your life results in inevitable nails-biting, hair-shredding, and not-doing-the-best-you-can-ing, all of which lead to poorly performed last-minute work. Anti-procrastinators are ready with scoldings, admonishing you with the potential for failure. Turn this apparent "problem" around by considering the benefits of procrastinating:
- You can percolate a lot of ideas. Instead of snapping to it and methodically working through the task, a procrastinator could very well be allowing the ideas to percolate, mature, and bubble to the surface in a much more inspired and fascinating form!

2

Meditate on the risks and rewards.

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Procrastinating can help you avoid problems, but it may create them, too. Jumping right in and doing something without thinking through the consequences and finding the weaknesses can bring about new problems and delays on top of having to complete the task. Procrastinating can provide the thinking buffer space to find what can go wrong and to find ways around that. Equally, procrastinating can unearth all the things that never really needed doing anyway - think how many times you've been glad you didn't jump to it when asked and how that saved you from a lot of trouble because either someone else did it, or it ended up not being a good idea to do it anyway.
- You might be using procrastination to protect yourself when you're not ready to do something. If you lack the skills, the courage , or the experience, procrastination can prevent you from leaping in where you're just plain incompetent, incapable, or uncomfortable.
- Procrastination can allow an unpalatable idea or task to grow on you. If you've been putting it off because you hate it, or don't want to be associated with it, procrastinating can provide the time needed to get used to it and to eventually settle in to a place of acceptance that lets you get on without feeling disinterested or even hostile about being involved in something.
- Procrastination can give you the time needed to build up the energy needed to proceed with gusto when you do get going.
- For people whose work is principally cerebral based, doing something practical (with the hands) is often a much-needed break from the depths of intellectualizing everything.
- Think about all the other things that are getting done as you avoid the procrastinated task!

3

Listen to your procrastination.

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Procrastination happens for a reason, so think about what you’re doing. Aside from the possible reasons outlined in the previous step, learning to listen to your procrastination can be a way of listening to your inner feelings when you would rather put that challenging task on hold. Is it possible that your procrastination is telling you one of the following?:
- What you're doing is genuinely boring and even if it has to be done, perhaps there are better ways of doing it? Ways that don't necessarily involve you, or you on your own?
- What you're doing isn't your strength or even interest. Perhaps you're studying the wrong field because your parents told you to become a doctor or lawyer but you wanted to be an artist? Or perhaps you're working in the wrong job because you liked the sound of the company until you joined it and realized what you're really in for?
- What you're doing is riddled with inconsistencies, weaknesses, errors, and blatant inaccuracies but to fix these would take a lot of effort or even explaining to the boss and you know it's way over your ability to fix.
- What you're doing is no longer a strength of yours because you've moved on mentally and experience-wise and you're ready for a new challenge.
- What you're doing is objectively pointless, and there are probably really much better things you could be expending your energies on. You just need to find the right way to explain this to the boss, teacher, or client...

4

Consider the values of deadlines.

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Deadlines are the fuel of procrastination, so weigh their relevance. And even though deadlines are often couched in terms of self-discipline and personal blame when they're missed or poorly met, they're less about virtuous behavior and more about achieving conforming behavior, which is often the reason why some people hate meeting them – there is an element of resentment or rebellion against being made to meet someone or something else's determined time. For other people though, deadlines bring out their best and bring on the adrenaline pump needed to dig in and pull out the inner genius that produces outstanding work at the last minute.
- A deadline can sometimes be truly the only source of motivation to bring about its completion. Recognizing how you value or cope with deadlines is part of procrastinating in a way that doesn't harm your own goals, efforts, and opportunities in the long run.
- Deadlines can be the procrastinator's friend if they're viewed in a positive light, as a source of eventual motivation and as a source of drawing out creativity.
- Work out your perfect equilibrium of brushing with deadlines and getting work done successfully. Once you know the absolute limit, use a balance of both deadlines and procrastination to your advantage.

5

Slow down.

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Procrastination might be your brain’s way of getting you to relax. If you’ve been working hard lately, your desire to procrastinate may signify that you need a break. This can be the pathway to more thinking and less doing, something sadly lacking in our harried, over-filled modern lives.
- Stop admiring busy people and busy methodologies. These can give the impression of doing something when really, nothing's happening at all. At least when procrastinating, something else is happening!
- Allocate thinking time . Allow yourself to use this time to think through ideas, consequences, and the bigger picture.
- Enjoy the process and not the destination. Procrastinating allows you to immerse yourself in the process. Some of it's boring, some of it's rough, and some of it's really enjoyable but all of it's a whole.
- Embrace distractions for what they are and let guilt fly.
- Recognize that a refreshed you works twice as hard and twice as focused upon return to the task at hand. Sticking with it without breaks, means losing sight of the forest for the trees as your perspective and enthusiasm turns stale.
- If other people want to negatively label your thinking-time procrastination, that's fine. Tell them that procrastination has become a positive, must-do in any modern achiever's life and watch their confusion.

6

Ignore the future.

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Don’t get up in your head about whatever might happen later. While a little consideration of the future is naturally essential for healthy living, obsessing about where you want to be in 5, 10, and 15 years' time can lead to burn-out, and can stick you on course for a narrow trajectory, focused always on the future, on the person you're planning to become instead of celebrating the person you already are. Procrastination requires that you live in the now —in the present.
- Excessive worrying doesn't change anything but it can entrap you in a cycle of fear, marrying you to sub-standard work and living choices for the rest of your life because you're too afraid of the consequences of letting go of those initial sub-standard choices.

7

Swap back and forth between tasks.

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Get a little bit of work done in between your procrastination bits. Value leisure and work time equally. The true procrastinator sees equal value in both the video game and the thesis or work paper. This is balance in action and valuing them equally is a sign that you've got your priorities ordered toward both work and play, not all work and no play (which, as we all well know, makes a person dull of mind and heart).
- Balance procrastination with obligation. Life isn't either all easy cruising or all full throttle. Try to combine both elements in your life and allow distractions in rather than letting them become moments of guilt or worry.

8

Get creative.

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There are an infinite number of ways you can kill time. Something as simple watching a fan blow your papers all over the room can keep you enthralled for hours. You can even draw all over your stomach.
- Stare at the mirror and make random faces. For starters, you could act like a monkey, just fold your lips inside and over your teeth, and jump around like a madman. If you can do this for a good half hour, you've been successful at wasting a good chunk of your time.
- Stare out the window. Notice what form the clouds are taking, people watch, count the arrival times of trains, watch the street being swept, and work out how long it'll take to reach the next corner, etc.
- Create your own laser light show.

9

Do some channel surfing.

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If you’re going to watch TV, browse until you find the perfect show. One of the beauties of procrastination is that it creates interest where none existed before. For example, the cooking channel becomes the equivalent of late night Cinemax; or watch the Spanish channel and try to figure out what's being said.
- You might want to choose movies over TV shows. TV shows are an hour maximum, most half an hour (some specials, especially some reality shows, sporting events, and shows on the History Channel are two). Each time a show ends, it forces you to make a decision between work and more TV. If you're given that decision two times every hour, sooner or later you'll crack. Movies, on the other hand, are at least two hours, and since most channels string about three movies together, that is only three TV-work decisions in six hours!

10

Don’t stress yourself out.

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Don't worry about making a mistake or not getting everything done. If you spend all your time worrying about the work you haven't done, then you aren't enjoying your procrastination and you're missing the point of productively introducing procrastination into your life. Just let your mind rest, clear it of worries, and focus on enjoying the distractions.
- Work is only as serious as you make it. Procrastination lets you enjoy the little things in life that would otherwise pass you by. The grass is greener, the clouds are fluffier, and Seagal's boots are just a little bit more blood-soaked.

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Tips

Chilling totally is not the same as procrastinating. Procrastinating is doing something else, even if that's thinking. Chilling is downtime, when nothing is meant to intrude on your peace, and definitely not worry you about what else you ought to be doing.

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Procrastination becomes a true form of art when you are able to use procrastination to totally erase any guilt you feel about not having completed your work. If the paper is three weeks late and you're going out drinking, you've figured it out.

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Write a list. The next time you find yourself procrastinating, write a quick list of "Why I like to procrastinate". You might surprise yourself as to the reasons that are going down on the list, as there could be impetus to re-prioritize a lot of things in your life!

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Warnings

There is procrastination, and there is procrastination. If procrastination is halting your progress along your intended path in life, then it's unhealthy. Good procrastination is an aid to uncovering what really motivates you and what makes you enjoy the here and now. If all it does is cause you to give up on anything, then it's self-sabotage rather than procrastination. Be sure to get the balance right and avoid harming your own chances of getting your life well sorted.

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How to Procrastinate

Steps

Consider the upsides.

Meditate on the risks and rewards.

Listen to your procrastination.

Consider the values of deadlines.

Slow down.

Ignore the future.

Swap back and forth between tasks.

Get creative.

Do some channel surfing.

Don’t stress yourself out.

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