Part 3: When Procrastination is Okay

Welcome to my newest series of blog posts about procrastination. If you’ve read the other 2 posts before this one, you’ve now found out if you classify as a procrastinator, and you’ve received tips from me about avoiding procrastination. If you didn’t catch the previous posts, there are links to them at the bottom of this blog entry. This part of the procrastination series has to do with deciphering when procrastination is okay and how to balance between work and play.

We’ve all struggled in the past with one form of procrastination or another. Whether you use social media sites to delay your work, chores as an excuse to avoid work, or brainstorming while waiting to begin your work, everyone has procrastinated in some way. Have you heard, though, that sometimes, procrastination can actually be good for you? Here are a few ways that might surprise you when it comes to healthy procrastination:

Give yourself time to start your project.

Depending on what the project is, you shouldn’t jump straight into it and make hasty decisions about it. For instance, if you are assigned a 20-page paper to complete by the end of the month, you don’t want to just begin typing the whole thing until you get to 20 pages. You’ll want to brainstorm a topic, create an outline, and do your research a little before getting into the paper. If you move along this process too swiftly for this size of a project, you might regret the quick decisions that you made in the beginning. To procrastinate in a healthy way, do something productive toward a large project like this. Many people procrastinate by working on something productive (e.g., chores), but they don’t do anything to progress the project that truly matters.

Allow procrastination to bring you back to the present.

As we learned in a previous post about procrastination, many people delay their important work because they’re afraid of the end result of their project. Procrastinating your project for a little while should give you some time to stop worrying so much about your future and issues that might cause you unhealthy stress. When you come across a project that has a deadline, give yourself some time to relieve any stress that you feel. For instance, go out with some friends who can give you some perspective and inspiration to continue your project. Taking a step back from your project will help you focus on what’s really important in your life and will help you take some pressure off your project.

Continue your project.

As a grad student, you well know that there is a time and a place for everything. Make sure that you’re appropriately applying yourself to your work and your play time. You can easily balance these important parts of life by knowing when to procrastinate and knowing when to get to work. Understand the difference between healthy procrastination (e.g., exercising to recharge your body) and unhealthy procrastination (e.g., sitting on your couch with Netflix in your lap for a full Sunday), and you’ll be on your way to a more healthy way of completing large tasks.

I wanted to post about this topic, not so that you can give yourself even more excuses to procrastinate your work further, but I wanted to bring hope to your situation and allow you to see that you’re not alone and that it’s okay if you want to delay a project to a certain point and get started a little later with it. However, it’s important to pick up your project again and keep working on it.

To continue learning the difference between healthy and unhealthy procrastination, take a look at the following resources I’ve chosen for you:

This last resource is from our very own PhDStudent website. If you follow the link, you’ll come to our Articles page. From there, you can decide which category fits you best. Whether you’re procrastinating filling out your grad school applications, writing your dissertation, or you’re just avoiding grad school work altogether, read through the articles to help gain perspective, inspiration, or to productively procrastinate your next project.