It used to be standard shtick in newspapers to, once a year or so, report on the antics of the Procrastinators\u2019 Club of America. I don\u2019t recall the exact jokes, but the gist would be something like a 1978 article announcing the imminent 1964 meeting of the club. That sort of humor would be considered too stodgy and gray-suited for today\u2019s tastes. But, back in the day, we got a chuckle out of it. It was deadpan and self-effacing. After all, who among us hasn\u2019t procrastinated?<\/p>\n
As for the Procrastinator\u2019s Club of America, it was founded in 1956 by Lester Morton \u201cLes\u201d Waas, a Philadelphia native who passed away in 2016 at the age of 94. Waas served as an Army Air Corps pilot in WWII and he operated in the Pacific theater. I don\u2019t know if his duty ever brought him to Saipan, but it\u2019s fun to imagine that it did; after all, Saipan isn\u2019t exactly immune to the art and science of procrastination. After the war Waas returned to civilian life and started an advertising agency. <\/p>\n
Anyway, back to procrastination. It\u2019s more than fodder for office humor. It is, apparently, a topic that\u2019s getting a lot of attention. I took a glance at book listings. I tallied over two dozen titles about how to overcome procrastination. Most were in the ever-fertile self-help niche of the U.S. market. Well, at least the writers aren\u2019t procrastinating. They\u2019re really cranking out the pages.<\/p>\n
The established wisdom is that procrastination is a bad practice because it leaves things undone. That makes sense to me, at least in many cases. But there are other views on the matter, and they also make sense to me.<\/p>\n
Nassim Taleb, for example, devotes three pages to the topic in his book Antifragile. The big idea here is that heeding the impulse to \u201cdo something\u201d can actually be counter-productive because it can interfere with nature\u2019s workings. <\/p>\n
\u201cFew understand,\u201d writes Taleb, \u201cthat procrastination is our natural defense, letting things take care of themselves.\u201d <\/p>\n
So, to draw from an example in the book, if you have a backache, it may be wiser to give it a chance to heal itself than to have back surgery right away. There are times when non-action is more prudent than action, especially when non-action avoids risks that action entails. (Let\u2019s keep in mind this was a hypothetical example offered as philosophical food for thought; it wasn\u2019t designed to diagnose anyone\u2019s medical condition.) <\/p>\n
Furthermore, there are situations in life where pangs to procrastinate are symptoms to be heeded instead of obstacles to be smashed. <\/p>\n
\u201cSince procrastination is a message from our natural willpower via low motivation,\u201d writes Taleb, \u201cthe cure is changing the environment, or one\u2019s profession, by selecting one in which one does not have to fight one\u2019s impulses.\u201d <\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure on board with that. Big time. I\u2019ve been lucky enough to do work that I enjoy doing, but over the years I\u2019ve seen a lot of people trying to force themselves to be productive in contexts that aren\u2019t a good fit with them. <\/p>\n
Taleb\u2019s overall take is consistent with some of the ancient Chinese wisdom, and, in fact, he mentions the sage Lao Tzu and his doctrine of wu wei, which Taleb defines as \u201cpassive achievement.\u201d You could also define it more literally, but less meaningfully, as \u201cwithout action,\u201d but no matter how we split those hairs, the point I\u2019ll make is that it\u2019s not about haphazard idleness, but, is, instead, about cultivating an awareness that doesn\u2019t put our actions at odds with nature\u2019s forces.<\/p>\n
Saipan offers a great example of this notion. Swimming is part of the island lifestyle. The most basic, and important, part of swimming is floating. Floating is an exercise in wu wei. A good swimmer floats with nary a movement. It\u2019s the non-swimmers who splash around and exert themselves. <\/p>\n
Well, since we\u2019ve covered the Procrastinators\u2019 Club, Les Waas, Nassim Taleb, and even Lao Tzu here, I\u2019m going to close things out by offering one of my thoughts in the management realm:<\/p>\n
In the management realm, if you find that otherwise responsible workers are struggling with procrastination, it\u2019s likely a cue for you to redesign the work flow, including procedures and training materials, so that things can get done more smoothly and present less of a headache to the workers. Procrastination is a red flag. We can use that flag to everyone\u2019s advantage if we heed it instead of trying to steamroller over people while ignoring how they feel about things. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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