THE ART OF PRODUCTIVE PROCRASTINATION

"But I do not have enough time". How many times have you heard those words? How many times have you said it? How frequent do you utter those words especially when it involves important activities that you ought to do? And what line of action do you take after saying them?

All activities do not have equal importance. And some are more urgent than others. This implies that there is a need to have established prorities as regards what needs to be done. You can't do everything at once. The issue is that many resort to doing things that relatively do not matter and give sweet, and sometimes sincere, excuses why they will do the important things later. Afterall, there is no time. Right? Wrong!
You will always have time for what is important to you. You will not have time to do everything, no one does. And no one expects you to. But if it is something important, there will always be time. The issue is that many cannot tell what is important from what is not.

There is a theory in Economics called the Revealed Preference Theory propounded by Paul Samuelson and it simply states that CHOICE REVEALS PREFERENCE. In other words what you choose to do with your resources is what is important, at least to you. It is not what you say is important that is important; it is what you do that reveals what is important to you.

Haven't you seen people who cry about not having enough time yet tend to fit everything into their schedule, except the important things. It meant that those important things were not really important to them. If it was, they would find a way to fit it into their schedule.

TIME IS A COMMODITY 

You become what you exchange your time for. We procure activities with time. And what you spend a bulk of your time on consistently is what you become. A student is a student not because he attends a formal learning institution but because he spends time doing what a student does. You must be ready to exchange a bulk, not crumbs, of your time on the very activities you claim to represent. If you are a student spend time studying. You can't continue to go on complaining about not having enough time for what you absolutely need to do while having ample time for other things. It is an abuse of priorities.

BUT WHAT ABOUT MY HOBBIES?

Many people tend to cover up time wasted by claiming that they are spending time on their hobbies. Hobbies are good; you should have some. But the last time I checked a hobby was what a person did in his/her spare time.

SPARE TIME

SPARE TIME

SPARE TIME

Hobbies are not to interfere with what you have to. They should come up after you are done with what you need to get done. If your hobbies are the same as what you need to get done, lucky you. But if there are separate, then keep your hobbies for spare time. This will help you escape from the disease of wasted time.

I like to think of wasted time as time spent doing what you don't need to do that stops you from doing what you need to do. You can be free from that illness. One way to overcome that is to be skilled in the art of creative postponement, or you can call it productive procrastination. The concept is to postpone till later what you absolutely don't have to do now. Leave them out; let them go. This will help you have enough time to do what you absolutely need to do now.

Use this concept as the principle on which you base your daily activities. It will help you prepare better for whatever you need to get done.