Opinion | Prone to procrastination? Youre in good company with Mozart, Bill Clinton and J.K. Rowl

May 16, 2024

Was Charles Darwin wrong to procrastinate for 20 years before publishing On the Origin of Species? Did he need the time for fresh evidence and discussion over such a disruptive and hotly controversial evolutionary theory? Or was he simply afraid to confront his profoundly religious wife with ideas that would disrupt their marriage?

Can there not be benefits from simply letting ideas stew? Can creative juices not flow more freely in the comfort of home, or while walking a country trail? Might the adrenaline “squeeze” that pushes us up against deadlines play an essential part in producing our best work – making the prior procrastination irrelevant?

Whatever the potential merits of procrastination, and whether it flourishes when we work away from the structured environment of office and colleagues down the corridor, the general view is that it is rather a bad thing, and made worse by the unprecedented amount of entertainment and distraction at our fingertips.

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Many psychologists link procrastination with boredom, guilt, stress, anxiety, fear of failure, self-hatred or low self-esteem. They say around 20 per cent of us are “procrastinators”.

Professor Piers Steel at the University of Calgary, creator of the Procrastination Equation, estimates that procrastination, weaponised by smartphones, laptops, the internet and social media, costs the US economy about US$70 billion a year in lost productivity.

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A quick browse of famous procrastinators draws up a surprising list: Bill Clinton (according to Al Gore, he was “punctually challenged”); author Nassim Taleb (who writes in his book Antifragile that procrastination is “a message from my inner self”, “my body rebelling against its entrapment”); and Samuel Johnson, who said his “reigning sin” was “waste of time, and general sluggishness”. Which all go to show that procrastination does not necessarily imply a lack of brilliance or even of success.

Some examples of procrastination are misdescribed, and should instead be thought of as “purposeful delay”. Author J.K. Rowling claims to be a procrastinator, which is hardly reflected in the prodigious discipline involved in the successful completion of seven Harry Potter volumes.

Nor is Mozart, infamous for hovering constantly on the brink of deadlines, but who composed around 600 works in his short 35-year life.

Most lists also include the Dalai Lama, who claims he was in early life a chronic procrastinator, but then argues in his Advice on Dying: “You must not procrastinate. Rather, you should make preparations so that even if you did die tonight, you would have no regrets. If you develop an appreciation for the uncertainty and imminence of death, your sense of the importance of using your time wisely will get stronger.”

Pablo Picasso was similarly driven by the shadow of death hovering over his work: “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” Above all else, these examples suggest that procrastination becomes an issue of increasing concern as we get older.

But there are plenty of examples of “procrastination” that need separate description. Take those creatives among us whose instinct for perfection so often becomes the enemy of the good? Or what about those locked in what author David Graeber famously called “bullshit jobs”, where avoidance distractions may be amply justified?

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What about the understandable procrastination of avoiding the unpleasant? That dental or doctor’s appointment you keep putting off, even in the full knowledge that the problem does not go away, and may as a result become tragically worse? What about the leaky air conditioner that is never going to repair itself?

How many of us, even in our 60s, have dithered over writing a will? As Samuel Johnson commented: “When evils cannot be avoided, it is wise to contract the interval of expectation.”

Some tasks are inevitably immune to procrastination. A pregnancy will always take at most nine months no matter how assiduously you fuel the incubation process. A casserole in the oven will always take the same time to cook to perfection, no matter how hard or cleverly you try to speed the process.

Deng Xiaoping was probably right when he said Beijing should, if necessary, wait for 1,000 years to reunify with Taiwan. Sometimes, procrastination – including the United States’ strategic ambiguity over the future of Taiwan – is far superior to the temptation to act.

When it comes to working from home, it strikes me there are as many pros as cons, and that the challenge wherever you are working is to conquer the procrastinator inside all of us.

David Dodwell is CEO of the trade policy and international relations consultancy Strategic Access, focused on developments and challenges facing the Asia-Pacific over the past four decades

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