I’m really good at procrastinating. Perhaps you are too? I majored in it at university. And I’ve used it ever since
How Procrastination became my Go-To
Once, in my freshman year, I decided I was done with procrastination stress. I decided to write my essay a week before it was due.
After all, I would gladly ditch the caffeine-fuelled all-nighter. There would be no more bleary, handwritten sentences. Who needed the pressure of tapping them into the typewriter, rushing to beat the deadline of my 8am class, as dawn crept in? (It was always an 8am class!)
As an English major, I had a lot of essays to write. In those days, we typed, double-spaced, on manual typewriters. We stocked up on spare typewriter ribbons and little jars of white-out to cover our mistakes.
Our pages were stapled together in the upper righthand corner, and each essay had its own heft.
Our words had actual weight.It made no difference if we were erudite or nonsensical. We published every page and then we handed them in.
For a week, I thought I had Procrastination beat. I was smugly proud.
However, that ended when my professor (whose name I no longer remember) handed my essay back to me. Instead of the A I expected, my paper boasted a D. In scrawling red letters, it said, “Do better!”
From that day, I stopped trying to get work done early. I allowed my Procrastination to gallop freely over the weeks of each semester. I tackled each assignment at the very last minute.
The stress and pressure of a deadline released my words in a cascade of adrenaline-fuelled analysis that hung together and made sense. Procrastination pressure earned me straight A’s.
Procrastination Galloped Freely through the Decades
I learned that to procrastinate was safe and very effective. Over the decades, I deployed this technique like a pro: Zipping my suitcase as the taxi rounded the corner of my street. Submitting my taxes on the last possible day. Making excuses for posting on social media. Putting off that difficult conversation. Creating presentations on the night before the big business meeting. Never mind the jet lag, or my slightly red eyes, as I attempted to speak persuasively and lead compellingly.
The urge to procrastinate was firmly embedded in my cells. It was my defence against anything I needed to get done. I believed that it actually made me more productive and more effective. What I failed to realise at the time, was that my under-performing essay may have been lacklustre, not because I wrote it days in advance, but because I just didn’t grasp the concepts in that particular literary masterpiece.
Running from Shame and Not Good Enough
That one experience slotted itself into my identity and impacted me most of my life. Every time, I put something off to the following day, I was running from the shame of that failed essay. From the fear of being Not Good Enough.
In reality, I was creating my life, my work and my relationships from stress, out of stress.
This gave me a forced focus but limited the possibilities I could see. It shut down my ability to own my own self worth. It changed my energy. It pigeon-holed my leadership style. And, worst of all, it was costing me my wellbeing (I once stress-worked myself into 3 weeks of doctor-prescribed bed rest.)
There is another way.
Even for the most practiced of us Procrastinators.
It’s possible to create from ease.
It’s possible to work with your nervous system patterns and step into a new identity
It looks something like this:
See my friend as she comes up the drive: Ah look! It’s Procrastination coming to pay me a visit wearing a purple dress and some enviable boots!
Greet her politely: Hello old friend. You think you’re needed. Thank you for showing up. But all is well today. I am safe. Thanks; but move along.
Offer myself snacks: I know that Procrastination is birthed by my nervous system pulling a pattern from my past to make sure that I’m safe. It’s through small movement snacks or regular sensory snacks, that I can communicate present-moment safety to my innermost being.
Stay out of push. Claim and reclaim the identity of ease: Procrastination is no longer who I am. The stress of it is unnecessary. I no longer play in that sandbox. Through I might feel the old urge to Put Off Until Tomorrow, I do something…even if it’s a little thing toward my task. Then, I have another snack. This tiny ping pong game works surprisingly well to pivot Procrastination on her back foot and send her down the drive to elsewhere.
Over time, I notice that the frequency of Procrastination’s visits have diminished. I’m shifting the pattern, slowly, gently and permanently.
I know that, when life gets full or the stakes seem high, I may have to dance and pivot with Procrastination again.
This doesn’t mean I’ve lost.
The biggest shift is that I will see her coming and I know her for who she is. I understand her quirks and foibles.
But from here forward, I will be able to be a gracious host to her cousin, Easeful Creative Productivity.