I Am A Procrastinator via @dudonwai
Posted on February 7 2016 at 11:00 AM
I’m a procrastinator, but I’m not lazy. Procrastination is the delay of doing something you should be doing. Laziness is lacking the effort to do something you have the ability to do. If you’re like me, you have a million things you want to do, but you don’t do most of them. Either you have more important things to do first, or inertia is holding you back from getting up and doing it.
In the past year, I’ve overcome my inertia (that’s for another blog post). I’ve realized that I can do big things in life, but only if I’m willing to learn, grow and be uncomfortable at times. But the reason I procrastinate is that of the million things I could be doing, I can only do a few at a time, and I have to delay the rest. Is this a problem? Nope. Because I procrastinate in a good way.
Good and Bad Procrastination
In a popular essay, Paul Graham writes about good and bad procrastination, which explains that no one ever has enough time to do everything, but impressive people distinguish themselves by doing only the truly important things and delaying everything else — good procrastination. This same wisdom is shared in various forms from many brilliant people like Steve Jobs’ focus is about saying no or Marc Andreessen’s productivity porn.
So what is good procrastination? It’s recognizing that you only have 24 hours in a day, and you can’t do everything. So you make sure you do the important things first, and ignore all other distractions. In my life, I recognize I have 24 hours to spend on my job, relationships, hobbies and myself. The past year, I’ve been much more intentional about how I spend my time; less on my job and more on relationships that are important to me, and I’ve made a hobby out of reading, learning new skills and meeting great people that will help improve myself. It’s not that I value parts of my life less, but I value certain parts more. I have a whole life ahead of me, and all this potential to make an impact in this world, and the opportunity cost is too great for me not to develop myself and pursue my dreams.
Embrace Procrastination
For anyone reading this, I encourage you to embrace procrastination. Not in the bad sense of being lazy and not doing anything, but in a good intentional way that prioritizes important things in your life. Don’t let the busyness of life distract you from being the great person you can be.