Point Park University's Student-Run Newspaper

Point Park Globe

Point Park University's Student-Run Newspaper

Point Park Globe

Point Park University's Student-Run Newspaper

Point Park Globe

A guide to putting off projects the right way

You’re hiking on a safari through the African Savannah when a 400 pound male lion begins slowly and menacingly stalking toward you. You first try out the “ignorance is bliss” approach, hoping it will get bored and move on. When that fails, you decide to take some time to retie your hiking boots while trying to seem nonchalant. Unfortunately, Simba’s target remains obvious. When his bared teeth are feet away, your survival instinct takes over and you wildly sprint away, screaming at the top of your lungs if you so choose. If you’re in shape, you live. Congratulations!I’m aware that this is very unrealistic and that a human could never outrun a full-grown wild cat, but I promise my imagery serves a purpose. That lion is your deadline for whatever project you need to complete. By performing another useful task – tying your boots – you were better equipped to take off and succeed when you had to.My main point is that contrary to what you’ve often been told, productive procrastination is not an oxymoron. You can in fact postpone your work without feeling guilty and lazy, much like I just did with the unnecessarily large amount of words it took me to actually establish a purpose for this story. Confused? Let me explain.Many researchers consider procrastination to be a “self-handicapping and dysfunctional behavior” according to a 2005 article in “The Journal of Social Psychology.” However, more recent studies have suggested that not all procrastination is harmful; there are two types: active and passive.You want to be an active procrastinator, someone who chooses to engage in beneficial “busy work” when he or she is really supposed to be doing something more important. The key to making this work is confidence in your ability to work well under pressure. People who excel at this tactic know that they can postpone a particular task intentionally and, by doing so, create a better product.In 2007, an International Conference on Procrastination was actually held in Lima, Peru; I wonder how long they had been meaning to get around to it – apologies, that was lame. Moving on, at the conference, it was stressed that people tend to avoid the tasks most meaningful to them. The hosts redefined procrastination as an “active avoidance strategy.”In his pompous but engaging book “The War Of Art,” Steven Pressfield said “the more important [something] is to our soul’s evolution, the more resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” Sometimes, when a task, like writing a research paper, becomes too overwhelming and you may believe banging your head on the keyboard would produce something equivalent to what you’ve been spitting out, you need to focus on something other than your complete loss of motivation.Choose to procrastinate.Accept the fact that you will be much more productive both now and later if you get some fresh air or food. Head to the gym to clear your mind. Do mundane chores that don’t take much mental effort. When was the last time you changed your sheets? Without intimidating tasks to avoid, I seriously doubt that my closet would ever be organized and I know that if the enormous pile of dishes accumulating in the sink fell over, it could potentially cause an injury.It is important, however, to be sure to briefly push the task you are avoiding to the back of your mind. Do not remove it entirely, however, because unfortunately you must step back into reality at some point.  When returning to your project after a brief hiatus, you should be able to look at it in a different light, and may notice errors or opportunities for improvement that you hadn’t before. You might look at the parts that made no sense and suddenly know exactly how to fix them. If this method doesn’t spark inspiration, the fact that your deadline is inching toward you like the king of the jungle with an empty stomach surely will. Some people find that they work best and most creatively under pressure. You could be one of those people.

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