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Efficient procrastination

Procrastination is one of the signs of the soul at work, undermining and sabotaging the grandiose aspirations of the hero-ego, perhaps so that something real can happen, or not happen, as it, not I, wish. In Hillman's work procrastination means uncountably many things to the soul. It's an intrinsic part of the work process, resisting the pen the way the knots in wood resist and redirect the chisel; it's like the dance of avoidance all animals do on the way to their most primal gratifications, building up the intensity of mating or fighting by postponing it. It's much like the way we turn red-faced and flee from the very person we've fantasized confessing our love to, or the way we eagerly look forward to going "home" and then sink into a ghastly regressive lethargy. (Amba 2005)

There is a plethora of self-help books and articles online suggesting ways to beat procrastination and how procrastination is bad for us and our performance. Procrastination appear to be a disease putting most uncomfortable as tasks keep piling up. I'd suggest that the real disease is the feeling of guilt experienced when we know that we are procrastinating. We are so conditioned by social and cultural norms to experience this guilt that we forget how great it is to be procrastinating and how it can be a source of creativity when done properly.

In my perspective there are different types of procrastination - the good and the bad. Procrastinating like reading interesting articles online, writing one like now, listening to some interesting individuals that broaden perspective, doing some cleaning at home, repairing clothes, doing some gardening... this is  productive type of procrastination that makes you feel good and also improve your environment. Procrastinating like playing video games all day, staying in bed or just tasks that make you feel bad after you've done them, bad unproductive procrastination...

In a time when we are asked to do more and more at work, our stress level is going up, we feel burnt out because we have too many responsibilities to answer to, we become unable to recognise what are priorities and slim down our list of tasks to do to the bare essential, embracing procrastination becomes necessary for the useless to just disappear. When an urgent and important task come along, we have all the energy necessary to tackle it franco because in between we had the time to just enjoy the little things that make life wonderfully nice and peaceful.

Interesting Articles and websiteabout procrastination and how to make it efficient:




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