My first find on the value of procrastination came when I started school. My teacher was a Catholic nun whom we called "Sister Janet" or "Sister".
Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash
Sister explained that she belonged to an order of Catholic nuns. It started in Germany a long time ago. She and the other nuns at my school were teachers but other members of her order were nurses. They worked in hospitals.
Preschool or Kindergarten was not an option in those days. Every member of my first grade class was a school newbie. So Sister Janet spent the first day laying out the rules for success in her class.
Her favorite saying was "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today." At our tender age I doubt any member of my class knew what she meant. In our world of play and simple chores, tomorrow was a place our parents often talked about. Our world only existed in the here and now.
Everything was new and puzzling on that day. It was the first time any of us had to sit still at a desk while an adult talked.
Sit still and be quiet was rule #1 in Sister's class.
Do not speak out unless Sister asks you a question. That was rule #2.
Raise your hand if you had a question or wanted permission to go to the bathroom.
Do not leave your seats until dismissed by Sister at break time or the end of the day. A bell would ring to alert Sister, but we were to ignore the bell. Only Sister could give us permission to leave.
I can't speak for my classmates but the end of that day could not come soon enough. The second I heard that bell, I wanted to run out of that classroom. I would jump in my mom's waiting car and get home to play with my neighborhood friends.
The bell rang and Sister gave us each a book to "take home and bring back covered tomorrow." I took the book and met mom.
I told Mom that I had to bring back the book tomorrow. I did not tell her the covered part.
At that time we could play outside until the streetlights came on. That is what I did. I would cover the book when I came back inside. That is when I learned the dangers of procrastination. I was too tired to cover the book. I went to bed believing I could cover it in the morning. That did not go as planned. Mom wanted to leave early. So I took the naked book, and we headed off to school. What happened next programmed me to avoid procrastination for the most of my life. In later life, I discovered there is value in procrastination.
Most people who write about procrastination write about how to cure it. But unless you had Sister Janet in First Grade, that may be difficult. As an adult, there are an infinite number of things you could be doing. No matter what you focus on, you're not working on everything else. So the question is not how to avoid procrastination, but how to procrastinate well.
At times, I am the "absent-minded professor." I may forget to shave, or eat, or even look where I am going while thinking about a writing project. My mind is absent from the everyday world because it's hard at work on an important topic. That's the hidden value in procrastination. Putting off work on small stuff to work on big stuff.
With all due respect to Sister Janet, getting outside to play after school is bigger stuff for a 6-year-old than covering a book.
