Procrastination Isn't Always a Bad Thing
Well, according to Romanus Wolter's latest article for Entrepreneur magazine, Just Play It Cool, I may actually be onto something. In the article, Wolter offers several tips to making procrastination more productive, including releasing the guilt, avoiding overly emotional responses, and letting your subsconscious and other people work on resolving the issue.
All of these resonated with me, but once I started thinking about it, I realized another advantage of procrastination that I've often experienced myself. What I've found is that as entrepreneurs with innovative ideas, we are often ahead of our time, or more precisely, ahead of the market's readiness for our product or service. There is such a thing as being too early to market.
So procrastination may just be a bad habit, or poor time management, but it may be your intuition telling you that there's a good reason to put off the decision or action. Next time you find yourself procrastinating, rather than feeling guilty about it, or forcing yourself into action because you think that's what you're supposed to do, take some time to reflect on the situation. Why are you procrastinating? What are the consequences of your procrastination - will it really have any significant impact if it waits a day, a week, or even longer? Are the other demands on your time more important? Maybe you really should just let it be for now and not feel guilty about it.
Comments
Hi Scott,
What a wonderful observation about connecting intuition to procastination. The great thing about this connection is that rather than “hiding” from what you haven’t accomplished, your gut pushes you forward.
And, we both know, that creating success develops from taking action. Thank you for your insight!!
Possibilities,
Romanus
I was excited when I read your observation, because I know that I am a big procrastinator which I believe held me back from doing so many things in my life. But as I get older and I look back, my procrastination has saved me a lot of money and from dead end dreams. I always thought that it was fear that held me back from making long awaited decisions in my life but now I see how procrastinating has helped me see a bigger picture and taught me patience. But still I do feel guilty for waiting on the last minute to do everything. Your observation however is reasuring to me that it is also tied to my intuition. Thank you.
Procrastination viewed from a different angle I like that I’m from the Republic of Panama and I din’t fill in URL line because I don’t understand what you are asking for.I really enjoyed reading your article I tooked some notes.Thanks