Do you Procrastinate?

I am not a practicing procrastinator.  I will say I have been less than motivated in life but procrastination gets on my last nerve.  If you believe you can sway me and change my mind with a good argument for the positives in procrastination, please do give it your best try.  I will listen.  Here is my argument against.

Procrastinators work on the panic principle.  The delay-button person will work themselves into a corner and then fight their way out, pounding their chest like a hero when the job is done.  Their fear of failure translates into something like this:  "If I only work at the eleventh hour and it's not a success, well, I didn't have enough time to do a really good job."  This habit of winging it starts in school, where last-minute cramming for exams is the norm, but take this attitude into life and it creates problems,  If you succeed, you never know if it really was your best shot, if you fail, you always have a built-in excuse.  It takes much more courage to really give yourself a chance to success, to prepare, to spend the necessary time, and then to see what the outcome is.  You just might be pleasantly surprised by the result.

When you break with procrastination, you give your central nervous system, ego and emotions a chance to breathe out.  Creativity blossoms in a non-pressured environment; ideas are able to cruise rather than race.  Instead of whipping yourself about not working, you work.  Simple.  The sheer relief of doing something rather than freaking out about it creates a powerful surge of energy.  Like diving into a pool swiftly, it is much less agonizing than tarrying at the water's edge.

There is a counter-theory about procrastination.  Some argue that time spent, for example, musing in the tub is actually a necessary gestation period for an idea to reach fruition.  This theory is dangerous to chronic dawdlers and plain nonsense to simple tasks that demand time, not genius.  Okay, So I have read that Charles Darwin went on long, long garden walks to nut out his theory of evolution, and perhaps he even daydreamed, but he didn't go near a TV set!  Besides, putting off a task allows its importance to inflate in your mind.  If you can't attack a project you dread directly, then at least start nibbling at its edges.  Take your reading material into the tub, keep ideas percolating by talking them over with a friend, or make a detailed list before falling asleep.  When you finally do have the guts to start, it won't be from absolute scratch.

You'll know that your gestation period has become dangerous procrastination when preparatory notes exceed the length of the assignment or you find yourself scrubbing the grout in your bathroom with a toothbrush.  Never let more than an hour pass between think-tank and action.  Those are just my thoughts about it.  Do you procrastinate?