It’s been a while since my last blog — my apologies! Life gets in the way of so many things we want to do. As they say; so much to do, so little time! This started me thinking about how to be more efficient so that I could post my blog more frequently. Of course I went through all of the regular time management and prioritization activities to try to find more time and it helped a little. Then as I was observing some of my activities I had a small “ah-ha” moment. There is efficiency in procrastinating! Let’s be clear — procrastination is generally a bad trait and perhaps if I were better at prioritization there would be little benefit to procrastinating. Nonetheless, looking back over my various jobs and activities it is clear that procrastinating has some benefit. So let me explain.
The basic premise is simply that if you handle every task and request as quickly and efficiently as possible, you will handle every task and request. On the other hand, if you selectively, strategically procrastinate, with the tasks and requests from various constituencies, some of them will go away or get done on their own. In fact, it’s a bit of a miracle how many tasks appear to be urgent one day and disappear the next! Thus, if part of your prioritization is to wait on tasks and only handle those that are truly time sensitive, you will end up having fewer tasks to do. This reminds me of a story Dr. Fox tells about growing up. His father’s first response to any request (for example, I want a minibike, I want a puppy, etc., etc.) was: “Think about it for a week and ask me again.” Of course, you know the end of that story. Nine times out of ten, a week later, young Dr. Fox would be on to something new and wouldn’t want what he previously requested. Don’t take this too literally but you can apply this to your employees – if you are TOO available it may be easier for them to ask you for help than to figure something out themselves. Thus, although I fully support open door policies, they have a downside. You need to use good judgment when you implement them. If you procrastinate in replying to your employees when the requests are not urgent, you will find that sometimes they will figure out how to do it themselves. Maybe even better than you could have!
Hopefully some of you are thinking; “But wouldn’t you ideally like to tell people to work on it themselves and get back to you rather than procrastinate in your reply.” Absolutely! But then again, life is not generally ideal and the act of replying and managing in an ideal way is not always possible. Thus, being passive about some requests may be the practical approach. In fact, this could really be considered a way of prioritizing. You are just putting the non-urgent items on the back burner. This is particularly important for those of us that are a bit obsessive, handling email in real time and tasks in a somewhat obsessive way.
There’s another way that procrastination can be valuable. Synergies between your various tasks. I have found that sometimes tasks organically bundle themselves if we procrastinate. We become much more efficient with these tasks if we procrastinate than if we do them in the precise order in which they come to us or even in some precise order of their priority. A few tasks build up that require you to talk with a particular colleague or dig into a particular computer app, etc. and doing these tasks together is more efficient than doing them one at a time. Or perhaps you procrastinate, carrying a task on your to-do list and then fortuitously run into a colleague in the hall who is a key link in these tasks. Rather than spending the time to set up a meeting or try to get on her calendar for a conference call, you take care of the tasks on the fly. Again, score one for procrastination!
To be sure, I’m not recommending procrastination for all things equally. For some items it is simply unacceptable to let them sit and others will expand if they sit, thereby decreasing your efficiency. Then there are those that become emergencies if you procrastinate and cost you much more than just time! Nonetheless, with these caveats, strategic procrastination may be an overlooked skill.
"Engineering Management Thought of the Week" Jeff Glass 
In supply chain management they call this postponement strategy.
Great, thanks for the comment. I also look at it as the “time value of time” in the same way we think about the “time value of money”. In other words, by completing tasks immediately not only do you use up the time that it takes to complete the task but there is a multiplicative affect because the follow-on tasks that come from this completion also come more quickly so soon you have a snowball affect on the demands on your time.
You’re talking to a fourth-year college student here. I have a test tomorrow and i’m procrastinating from studying by….reading about procrastinating. I’m an expert in procrastinating and I think it definitely has some benefits too. What you said about sorting tasks was excellent, but I also find in my endless procrastination that forcing yourself to finish something at the last minute makes me incredibly efficient at it, just by the lack of time alone. I’ve often saved essays to write in just an hour before class or between classes, and the habit of doing so honestly made me pretty damn quick at writing essays.
Many might do some sort of task like this in sections days before, but I think they often end up losing time to setting up and putting away the task, getting distracted, or whatever else. When you’re writing an essay or whatever you’re doing the night before, there’s nothing to stop you from getting distracted – the urgency is gone. If you push it till the very last minute (right before class) you can’t help but to be completely engaged and bang out words much faster than you would have ahead of time. You end up more focused as well, because you can’t afford to be distracted. I’ve honestly gotten some of my best grades on papers written in the least amount of time.
I think us procrastinators usually procrastinate from things we don’t enjoy, and honestly procrastinating right up to the last minute ultimately makes us spend much less time doing it. Provided its just as good quality, it can be an excellent way to de-clutter your life and make you much more efficient at the tasks you’d rather do after just one more show on netflix =P