Ten Years to Fix a Gate - Why We Should Procrastinate

In a few short minutes, you can easily create a To Do list that will take forever to complete. "Invent an anti-gravity machine" would be one example. "We should renovate the kitchen," would be another. Whether in business or personal life, you can easily take on more projects than you can possibly complete within the available time and money. So, we make our To Do lists, and some things stay on the lists forever.

One anonymous do-it-yourselfer had "rebuild the gate" on his To Do list for about ten years. When he finally got around to it, the job only took about three hours, start-to-finish. Think of the mental energy consumed by this as - four or five times a day for ten years - this poor sap would go through the gate and think "I've got to fix this."

Yet, despite what his wife and her mother may have thought, our do-it-yourselfer was probably not a "lazy good-for-nothing bastard who's ruining my life!" In fact, he was actively working on many other projects throughout that time, although he did take the occasional nap on the couch. Day-after-day, month-after-month, something else on the list was always a higher priority than fixing the gate. And so it was continually put off, until one day, it finally made the cut.

There's lots of advice out there on how to avoid procrastination, and if you have a chronic problem with that, certainly explore your options for becoming more decisive and action-oriented. But there are definitely situations where procrastination is exactly the right thing to do.

1. The options just don't feel right. Sometimes, especially with difficult or unusual problems, the options we've come up with just don't seem adequate. We may arrive at this conclusion as a result of rigorous analysis or as a result of intuition. Either way, the problem sometimes needs to simmer a little longer for a more complete solution to emerge. Creative problem solving is a process, and part of the process is being exposed to an adequate supply of new ideas and stimulus to work with. Sometimes that simply requires you to wait.
2. We're not convinced it's important. Again, whether from analysis or intuition, we just don't have enough evidence to convince us that the task is necessary. While we routinely make decisions despite incomplete information, sometimes there just doesn't seem to be a compelling case for action. One technology company had planned a major re-write of some embedded software, but tabled the project for a few months due to significant debate about the necessity. In those few months, a new hardware innovation made the re-write unecessary and eliminated the need for hundreds of hours of engineering and development.
3. We're not convinced of the value. Even if we're quite sure the project is important and we have a clear path forward, we worry that the solution will cost more than the problem we're solving. While this can just be fear talking, often it's a signal that we need to collect more data or do an experiment. A mid-size manufacturer was planning a major marketing campaign that would cost more than they'd ever considered in the past. Rather than not making a decision out of fear, rather than diving in despite the concerns, and rather than simply waiting for enlightenment, they did some carefully measured tests of the concept. Within a few months of this intentional procrastination, their testing providing convincing data that the approach would be effective. Waiting, and using the waiting to study and learn, proved to be just the ticket for success.
4. You don't have a plan. Project management is all about breaking the work down into manageable, achievable chunks; little steps that, when added together over time, get the whole project done. If you've been putting something off that is valuable, important and right, perhaps you are not yet ready to tackle the project. Perhaps you need to step back from "starting the project" and invest some time in "planning the project" - creating a sensible work breakdown structure, and a plan for success. Perhaps that's why you've justifiably been delaying the start.

So, if you've been putting things off, and putting things off, and putting things off, you may just be a lazy good-for-nothing bastard. Or perhaps you've been doing exactly the right thing.

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