Procrastination

In my humble opinion, wasting time is never a waste of time. It means I was doing something I enjoy instead of doing something I obviously didn’t want to do. Now, my maxim about wasting time is one that only works in moderation, in accordance with Franklin’s famous maxim. Obviously, if you procrastinate too much, nothing will get done, and that won’t be good.

But my real point is that if your brain refuses to let you work on a project there is probably a good reason for it. Sometimes it is a good idea to allow your brain to play with other thoughts for a while, rather then force it to work on something it clearly doesn’t want to.

Case in point. I procrastinated on writing this article all morning. I got a lot of important stuff done; I just couldn’t begin to start working on it, mostly because I didn’t know what I wanted to write about. And then, while I was procrastinating on Facebook, it hit me, I should write about the value of procrastination.

Now I have my idea and I am excited to write this column. And in the meantime I had had fun brainstorming about different avenues in which to sell my new book (to be released in early Sept 2010). All things come in their own sweet time as another maxim goes. So, the next time you are procrastinating on a project, don’t fret. As long as you are not near your deadline, you will be fine. Waste time doing something your brain enjoys and eventually your brain will figure out how it wants to tackle the project you have been procrastinating on and then there will be no stopping you.