Thoughts About Procrastination & Hard Deadlines.
Why is it so much easier to deliver when you're in a time crunch?
For a long period of time I thought I was a procrastinator; not so much because I put off menial tasks like picking up my laundry once it’s dry or wait until the very last minute to file boring excel worksheets, rather because each and every time I set out to achieve something for myself I always end up re-scheduling until it becomes too late to do it — or the idea fades away completely.
More times than not, this leads me to a forced reassessment of the situation and an increase in wasted energy as I must resort to ingenious gimmicks to fill the gap opened by the continuous postponing of those very simple actions to make sure I don’t screw the deadline all together.
Surely being resourceful is a great skill, but constantly scrapping for expedients to solve a problem that could have been avoided from the get go isn’t very smart. After a while it gets old and you start believing you are good for nothing, especially if you are part of an extremely saturated ecosystem such as the creative sector where it seems like everybody is constantly doing so much better than you (lesson learned: comparison = big mistake).
Because I pride myself on being an overachiever, to get around my shameful behavior, I often attribute my proclivity for delaying abstract tasks to the fact that I am just naturally better at working with clear deadlines pushed upon me by an external accountability agent, such as project commissioners or friends seeking help. Sometimes, I blame my inability to see things into fruition unless they are concretely stated before my eyes — hence, why I suck at fiction but I am great at documenting real life.
In a way, the fact that I am better at delivering under tight deadline isn’t solely a petty excuse as some of my best work — including a few of the pieces in this personal editorial project — has been produced under the premise of ridiculous turn arounds.
Additionally, I am not alone in the struggle against procrastination. There are multiple researchers* working towards debunking the psychology of deadlines; but as good as that makes me feel about my lack of self-control, the science behind this particular phenomenon is deeper than the gratification I get from reading about it.
In 1955 a witty British historian named Cyril Northcote Parkinson (no, not the guy who discovered the syndrome) wrote an essay about the very subject of procrastination on The Economist, citing a satirical anecdote of a woman whose only job in a day was to send a postcard.
Now, this action would take the average person around three minutes to complete, but for the protagonist of Parkinson’s tale the fairly simple task took an entire day.
First, the woman spent an hour finding the card then half hour looking for her glasses then ninety minutes writing the card, then twenty minutes deciding weather or not to take an umbrella on the short walk to the mail box and the story went on until her day was filled.
This funny passage, shortened into an adage that goes “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” became known as the Parkinson’s Law and translates to a common denominator in the life of many: we take the time needed to manifest something based on the pre-set timeline allocated for that very task. Therefore, the wider the deadline, the longer it will take us to bring our goals to life.
As I reflected on this statement, my mind quickly wandered towards the guilt that emerged from the lack of commitment to my newsletter in the past two weeks. Then I realized the problem wasn’t really procrastination, the issue at hand is that I am easily distracted.
Even if I set self-imposed rules and dates, I tend to override them with things that make me feel better about myself, like a walk in the park with a friend, a Netflix marathon or a lengthy FaceTime with my significant other that I am just unable to say no to.
When it comes to my own goals and ambitions, my ability to prioritize suddenly disappears — even when it’s something I claim to really want.
Overall, this habit has never caused me any harm because it has always been strictly relegated to my personal projects only. But recently, it went overboard and affected something other than my ambitions to take over the world.
Last year — or maybe it was 2020, who knows anymore at this point — I came across a photographic book I liked; a documentary series named “B-Ball NYC” by Brooklyn bred, Italian-American photographer Larry Racioppo. The album was a collection of makeshift basketball courts registered across the city, which he had been collecting through the years and finally decided to release in the form of printed matter.
As his website didn’t offer shipping to Italy, I emailed him to find out how I could get my hands on this intriguing volume. We struck up an unexpected digital friendship bonded by our Southern Italian heritage and love for historical documentation. Larry even added me to his mailing list, which awarded me the privilege of first access to any of his press publications and interviews.
Intrigued by his life and work, I decided I wanted to interview him so I reached out to a publication I have never collaborated with but would love to see my words on. They welcomed my pitch and assigned it to their online section without giving me a hard deadline.
Essentially, the pitch was open ended. Confident I could make it happen with no hiccups, I emailed my new friend requesting his time for a chat. Little did I know my plans of interviewing him were going to be continuously disrupted by incapability to commit to a fickle — well, inexistent — deadline, not so much because I didn’t believe in the idea myself, but the lack of external pressure tricked me into keeping this task at the very bottom of my ever changing priority list.
And so I begun rescheduling. First because of other (truly more pressing) commitments, then because I would rather spend my afternoon enjoying the Spring NYc sun decompressing from life with my long-distance boyfriend (which is, by no means, a great distraction when you live four thousand miles apart and only get to see each other a handful of times).
Unfortunately, my frivolous approach vexed Larry, who — on my third attempt to reschedule for a quieter time — emailed me back saying I was silly and he lost interest in talking to me, and rightfully so.
Despite being aware of the inconvenience of constant rescheduling, I was taken aback by his explosive reaction as, I guess, it was the first time my faulty behavior extended to an external source and got backlash.
While this personal experience was nothing perilous and probably won’t affect the grand scheme of things, it opened my eyes further and extended a reality check on something I had been contemplating for a while: defeating the challenges of self-commitment.
A few techniques I have been suggested is to stop multi-tasking. How does one do that when you rely on multiple stimuli to function? Well, a way to focus on one particular subject only is to allocate a specific time for it and not touch it any other time, unless absolutely necessary — like I do with my morning routine.
For example: Monday and Tuesday mornings are for emails and the afternoon is for personal projects and/or editing; Wednesday is for writing for external commissions while Thursdays and Fridays are 100% dedicated to my core business of consulting; Saturday mornings are for my newsletter and Sundays are for chilling.
While this weekly organization may sound strict and too structural, leaving little to no time for spontaneity — trust me, I know because I used to criticize this behavior and look at it as “not living” — I have seen what it can do for people.
It makes them more resilient and committed, overall more successful in life; not only business-wise but also in personal relationships. And who doesn’t want to be a reliable person who continuously shows up for themselves and those around them who deserve it?
Lastly, isn’t life better when you get shit done without continuously delaying rewarding results?
I guess this deliberation serves as a cathartic moment for me to ponder on and work against this game-changing schedule, which I hope will see me release all of the damn projects I currently have in the pipeline.
In a way, Things I Though About is already part of the scheme. So thank you for subscribing and somewhat holding my hand in this journey.
*Few studies and articles about procrastination and working in a time crunch here:
https://erationality.media.mit.edu/papers/dan/eRational/Dynamic%20preferences/deadlines.pdf
https://solvingprocrastination.com/why-people-procrastinate/
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-wait-the-science-behind-procrastination