From the course: Time Management Tips

Use positive procrastination

From the course: Time Management Tips

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Use positive procrastination

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- When training leaders to be productive, I encourage people not to stop procrastinating but to get better at it, to use it in a positive way. What is positive procrastination? Take a moment to open your calendar. Look at the activities you've scheduled for yourself, not meetings with other people, just you by yourself working on a project of some kind. How many of those activities are scheduled more than 90 days into the future? In my experience, most people aren't scheduling personal tasks that far in advance. Most have a short-term perspective and look at only what can be done in the next week or two weeks. This is the opposite of positive procrastination. This results in a calendar that's crammed full of too much short-term activity. It creates a feeling that you'll never have enough time. This will leave you feeling overwhelmed in an interrupting-heavy world when unexpected things can and do occur. Positive procrastination is about creating more open space in your calendar by thinking long-term. It frees up time and gives you more room to be prepared for emergencies and interruptions. When scheduling time to work on a project, get in the habit of asking yourself: When is the latest I can reasonably get this done? Whatever your answer is, back up about 5% and then set your completion date for then. So, if something is due six months from now, schedule the completion date not at the very end of those six months, but maybe back about 10 days. Then, schedule time between now and that date to complete the project. This gives you enough time to get it done with a little breathing room in case something goes wrong. Procrastination can be a positive, provided you plan properly.

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