(A message from Sandy) …………………..that procrastination is not always bad? Curing procrastination seems impossible, no matter what you work on, you’re not working on everything else. So the question is, not how to avoid procrastination, but how to procrastinate well?

There are 3 variations of procrastination depending on what you do instead of working on something:( a) do nothing  (b) something less important, or  (c) something more important. The last , I would argue is good procrastination. Type-C procrastinators put off working on small stuff to work on big stuff.

What is “small stuff?” I would describe it as work that has zero chance of being mentioned in your obituary. It’s hard to say what might turn out to be your greatest work, but there are a whole class of tasks you can safely rule out:  shaving, doing laundry, picking up dog do-do, cleaning house,watering the flowers, or organizing the recyclables–anything that might be considered mindless or errands.

One of the main reasons people find it difficult to do work on a particular problem is that they don’t enjoy it. Even when you do enjoy what you are working on, it’s easier to work on the small problems–why? Why is it so hard to work on the big problems? One reason may be you do not get any reward in the foreseeable future, if you finish in a day or two you expect a nice feeling of accomplishment fairly soon. If the reward is indefinitely far into the future, it seems less real. Also, big problems are terrifying. There can be almost a physical pain in facing them. It’s like having a vacuum cleaner hooked up to your imagination. All your initial ideas get sucked out immediately, and you don’t have anymore, and yet the vacuum cleaner is still sucking.

You can’t look a big problem directly ing the eye. You have to approach it from the side, or the back. You have to adjust the angle just right, so that you catch some of the excitement radiating from it but not so much that is paralyzes you. (remember in “It’s a Bugs Life”–look away from the light:) Maybe the way to “solve” procrastination is to let delight pull you in  instead of making a to-do-list push you. Try working on an ambitious project you really enjoy, sail as close to the wind as possible, and you will leave the right things undone.

What’s the best thing you could be working on, and why aren’t you?