Personal Productivity
7 Reasons Why Procrastination Makes You More Productive
AUTHOR: Hugh Beaulac
“When he worked, he really worked. But when he played, he really played” ~Dr. Seuss
The person who’s in the office the longest appears to be the hardest worker, right?
At first blush, it makes sense. However, working many hours a day doesn’t mean being productive. You can spend eight hours a day scrolling your Instagram feed and communicating with colleagues or you can spend just two hours to complete an annual report.
Sometimes you have work days when you need to deal with email overload, meet with your colleagues, discuss a plan, and you’re still working on a task when the deadline is coming. Although you’re overwhelmed at work, you can’t stay focused and you avoid doing your tasks.
In short, you procrastinate.
Most people believe procrastination prevents you from achieving your career goals, but don’t be upset: we all have been there. According to statistics, 95% of the population procrastinate from time to time.
In fact, it’s better to take a break and come back to work later than spend many hours trying to work on a task you don’t want to complete. The main point is to work productively which means working efficiently – get work done on a great level without spending much time.
Here’s the list of reasons procrastination makes your more productive:
- Become more creative. Working at the last minute can give you a lot of flexibility to improvise. If you can boost creativity, you can look at the same problem from different angles and find actionable solutions. Therefore, you spend less time solving your problem and it makes you more productive.
- Prioritize tasks. Trying to meet tight deadlines, you have to prioritize as you realize that you won’t be able to complete all tasks on a great level while being under pressure. Thus, you learn to work on the critical and important tasks first without wasting time on time eaters.
- Save time. It’s nearly impossible to work efficiently without taking breaks. If you feel that you start procrastinating, just hold on and relax instead of wasting extra time on trying to do your task (not actually doing it).
- Work more efficiently. When you procrastinate, you postpone working on your duties. Thus, you have less time to work on your tasks. Working on tight deadlines, you avoid unnecessary slack time in your work and projects.
- Boost energy. Procrastination isn’t bad if you know how to make the most out of it. Once you can distract from completing your task and focus on relax, you can become more energetic which means being able to work harder on your duties.
- Increase motivation. More often than not, people procrastinate when they don’t feel to be able to complete a task well. However, when they come to finishing it in the short term and succeed, they feel motivated. It seems that their worries are not so bad and they can work better. Thus, people who procrastinate increase motivation, and therefore start working more productive.
- Reduce anxiety. You start worrying when you think about completing a task that you don’t want to do. However, when you procrastinate, you boost motivation and calm down as you’re not focused on completing the task. Therefore, you save your mental health and it helps to work better.
Delaying work duties isn’t a bad idea if you know how to procrastinate productively. Sometimes it’s better to stop working to complete your task later than spending many hours waiting for your inspiration to come.
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