A little procrastination: everybody does it

Procrastinate. Put it off until tomorrow, or the day after. Students do it. Teachers do it. Everybody does it.

And it’s bad, bad, bad. Right? Not necessarily. Procrastination, like cholesterol, has its good and its bad kind.

From one perspective, some putting off is absolutely necessary. Since we can only concentrate on one thing on our to-do list at a time, we need to make sure everything gets postponed.

So rather than decrying the art of putting off, we may need to perfect it, just make sure we're putting off the right things. For example, if getting a good night's sleep is a priority (yes, it needs to be that at least once a day) we need to learn how to make everything else wait. Or if studying for a test, doing a paper, or spending some time with God or with other good people are important (as these things sometimes need to be) we have to practice putting off other less purposeful activities.

Simply put, good procrastination means putting off anything that gets in the way of accomplishing what we'll feel best about at the day's end. Or at the semester's end. Or at life's end, for that matter.

Bad procrastination, on the other hand, is closely linked to "avoidant coping styles," according to researchers Sirois and Pychyl at Carleton University in Ottowa. Such coping not only results in late term papers, they say, but is related to higher rates of smoking, drinking, and a tendency to postpone seeing a doctor for acute health problems.

Not good.

Some folks procrastinate badly because they are clinically depressed. They not only have their normal "down" days, but experience a treatable disease that slows them down, makes concentration difficult, and saps them of the energy they need to help them stay on task. Others of us just don't do well with ordinary impulse control, based on our years of practicing the art of putting the most pleasurable things first rather than the most important.

Here are some ways to better budget limited time and energy. At the end of the day, reflect back on how you've spent your time, then outline some of the things you want to be sure to accomplish the next day. Reward yourself with a break every now and then. That is, after reading for a class, take some time to catch up on e-mails. Or after finishing the first draft of a research paper, enjoy dinner with a friend.

For all of us bad procrastinators, just getting started can be half the battle. If we can make ourselves work at some things that are less pleasant first, even if only for twenty minutes, it can help us get off dead center and give us the taste of success we need to keep going.

Good time management may be hard, but it’s also very simple: Put first whatever's important at a given time, then put off everything else.