When ‘Procrastination’ is Wisdom

Yes, you read it right... there is wisdom in procrastination, or should I say, in delaying things until their right time.

Many times actions are undertaken prematurely out of fear that we’ll forget or fail if we don’t start fretfully now. This action takes place in fear. A good reputation for promptness is afforded, but what’s missed out because the ‘important’ came before the ‘urgent’? Sometimes the ‘urgent’ then doesn’t get done.

There is, of course, an opposite and equally vibrant truth—doing the important things and not just the urgent things... because unorganised people tend to get sucked into focusing their time on urgent things (both unimportant and important). Most of us want more peace than to live in urgency all the time. It’s why people drive headlong into burnout.

There’s a tantalising balance to the management of wise living.

Benefiting from Timely Procrastination

How many times have we committed to something weeks out and done our work only to find the goalposts shift? So we did that thing again. And before it was due things changed, again!

Rework is the spiritual death of many in their millions. It is the rationality of despair in a world so already full of it.

Enters, instead, planning to break open the nexus...

Planning is an art of wisdom that speaks to the science of timing. It cannot sanction things late or early—it loves things just in time. Planning meets its schedule and not beforehand.

This is no excuse for actual procrastination; that age-rejected art of leaving people (not least ourselves) high and dry for want of the result that’s counted on but has not been delivered.

Empowering Confidence for Skilled Timing of Action

The person most in control of themselves knows when to do what.

Sure, there are the matters of ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘with whom’—not to mention ‘why’—but when is a critical thing.

Faith resounds in our trust of the timing of events and our actions—and how these two coincide. Luck has nothing to do with astute timing as we learn to adopt systems that ensure our feats gain maximum impact. Sounds more like self-discipline.

Wisdom has nothing to do with failing to achieve important objectives, unless it’s to learn from our errors—a sure but painful task toward burgeoning wisdom.

There is hardly a better causation for confidence than hitting the bullseyes of life with adroit timing.

There is wisdom in procrastinating over some issues as the time for delivery sits off at comfortable distance. This wisdom, however, only reaches truth-in-perpetuity in its effect-upon just-in-time.

Delay only works for us if we deliver when it’s required.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Graphic Credit: Procrastination.