What does procrastination say about you as a person?
Welcome to the company Laatsteminuutproducties.nl, of which I have been a prominent member since I started walking around this planet. Things are better than before, but I still find myself in situations I shouldn't have to be in.
Take now getting my boating license. I also wanted such a paper to conquer the water, so I signed up for my theory exam. It turned out to be one big gigantic déjà vu event. I blocked one day, one evening until midnight, and the morning itself another hour in the car in front of the exam location. It was as if I was back at the HvA and had to go to Amstelborgh/Borchland for an exam. My procrastination was thriving there.
The funny (and nice for me) thing is that I can manage someone else's agenda super tightly. Only my own sometimes gives me a little heart flutter here and there. Fortunately, I'm not the only one who really struggles with this, and it also works to my advantage, researchers say. It seems that procrastination occurs in 80 to 95 percent of students, but as soon as work needs to be done, this number drastically decreases.
Research shows that procrastinators are not lazy, but are mainly busy with the wrong things. 20 percent of people suffer from serious procrastination. I suspect that I am not in the ‘serious’ category, but still: I can relate. The nice thing is that procrastination is also the beginning of creativity, and I happen to need that quite often.
How does it work? By postponing something, you let a thought or idea mature in your head, which is handy in the case of inventions, but also in writing a story. Something already takes shape in your head, making the execution go faster. By the way, I am in pretty good company, because Steve Jobs was a notorious procrastinator, just like Leonardo da Vinci.
Besides being creative, people with procrastination are often impulsive and tend to work harder and better as a deadline approaches. I see more and more advantages. Procrastinators are actually really fun people. You understand that I forget all the misery about fear of failure and being overstimulated and therefore concentrating on the wrong things. I like to see things positively.
I came across a good tip from Kevin Systrom, founder and former big boss of Instagram: do something for five minutes, even if you don't feel like it. It turns out that you are more likely to finish something once you get started. And if not, it always helps to just do nothing for a while.
Source: Kennisvannu, Quest
