I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally
doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have
papers to grade, textbook orders to fill out, an NSF proposal to
referee, dissertation drafts to read. I am working on this essay as a
way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I
call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered
that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected
and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they
make of time. All procrastinators put off things they have to
do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait
work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing
absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they
do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or
making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get
around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because
they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the
procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on
earth could get him do it. However, the procrastinator can be
motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as
these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.
