How Can We Learn From Procrastination?
I am back; finally (!). What better way to welcome myself back from my self imposed break than to write about the art of procrastination? Without further ado, let’s dive straight in. I sincerely believe that when our mind wanders in the midst of an alleged important activity, it is a sign that we’re bored. If we’re bored, we either find what we’re not doing not interesting enough, be it for its short or long term benefits, or we find something else to be more interesting to do. It doesn’t matter whether is it actually objectively more interesting to do. That is beside the point. The focus here is that it appeals to our subjective selves. We need to study, but we would rather tidy up our desk. We need to work, but we would rather refill the refrigerator in the pantry. In my case, I need to write, but I would rather take advantage of the newly imported Taiwan claw machines and catch a ridiculous amount of speakers. Somehow, whatever the task is that alleviates our boredom runs on its own. When the process starts, it is almost too late to interrupt and stop it.
Our questionable time wasting projects take on their own unstoppable momentum.
These side projects are supposedly time wasting as they eat into our productive hours and potentially devour our entire lives. To be honest, it is all-consuming. We should really be doing what we’re supposed to do than to drift off to something that is stupid and pointless. But I contend that these second-order activities are equally important, or even more important than our primary tasking. The act in of itself may be idle and counterproductive, but the existence of it reminds us what it means for something to be enjoyable. It reminds us of play, and play leads to creativity. We improve linearly when we think and practise in one particular dimension. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is largely advocated for its safeness. But if we want to improve exponentially, I believe the most logical approach is to put ourselves in multiple dimensions.
We don’t need to be an expert in our side projects, we need to be enthusiastic.
It is not a chore as dreary as algebra homework. It is not a burden. It is definitely not cumbersome. Chances are, we are willing to give up time, a lot of it, in spite of the foreseen consequences it might bring after. It is an interest, and an interest speaks for itself. It may last for as brief as a couple of minutes, an hour or weeks. What matters is not the duration that it remains in our lives, but what it speaks to us. Similar to our personality traits, what we’re usually interested in, which usually comes in the form of our idle play, tells us a lot about what we should do in life. I believe the correlation is there, but it doesn’t come off as apparent as we would like it to be. I’ll use myself as an example. I enjoy playing basketball. I enjoy playing claw machine. I enjoy testing online ads. On the surface, it appears that there is no connection among these three activities. However, if we were to actually pay attention to what we’re losing attention to, we’ll come to realize that it is not about the basketball, claw machine or testing of online ads. It is about an activity that involves the intertwine of skill, luck and a big pay off if done correctly.
It seems like I like to put myself in a position where the odds are against me, but I actually have a reasonable amount of control to pull off what appears to be difficult / impossible.
This is the insight. More precisely, this is MY insight. Chances are, all of our insights differ from one another. If I have to point at the web that is stringing all of our useless procrastination together, it would be the usefulness of our useless procrastination. Normally when I say the word “usefulness” and “uselessness” inthe same sentence, I would cue the philosophy of Zhuangzi. For the sake of your sanity, I shall not. Yes, the productivity output of our idle play is almost always a negative when it comes to measuring tangible results. If you’re measuring against being a successful worker / student, then everything else that you’re doing beside working / studying should put you to shame. But, indulge me for a little. Imagine if you’re measuring your supposedly useless activity (e.g. attempting to throw your crushed up paper ball into the trash bin more times than you should be doing so) against something intangible like the happiness of your life, would you still be ashamed of yourself? I wouldn’t. Because I just thought of a fun game to teach my children not to litter.
