From “Later” by James Surowiecki, The New Yorker (October 11, 2010). Click here to read the full article online.
But before we rush to overcome procrastination we should consider whether it is sometimes an impulse we should heed. The philosopher Mark Kingwell puts it in existential terms: “Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing. … Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all.”
In that sense, it might be useful to think about two kinds of procrastination: the kind that is genuinely akratic [doing something against one’s own better judgment] and the kind that’s telling you that what you’re supposed to be doing has, deep down, no real point. The procrastinator’s challenge, and perhaps the philosopher’s, too, is to figure out which is which.
Jane Friedman has spent nearly 25 years working in the book publishing industry, with a focus on author education and trend reporting. She is the editor of The Hot Sheet, the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors, and was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World in 2023. Her latest book is The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press), which received a starred review from Library Journal. In addition to serving on grant panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund, she works with organizations such as The Authors Guild to bring transparency to the business of publishing.
As a chronic procrastinator, at least about some things, I find this excerpt particularly resonant. I make lists. They’re very helpful when I adhere to them, but also when I don’t. Often I eventually find those list items I keep skipping fall into one of the two categories above, though I couldn’t have articulated that before reading this, so thank you! And, by the way, if the list item ends up falling into the first category, sometimes all I need is more time/thought to figure out the best way to get that task accomplished.
I recently read a great tip from the Behance newsletter: When you make a to-do list, make it for only one day at a time, and limit yourself to a single Post-It note. The strategy helps me acknowledge what can and can’t be accomplished in a single day, and to better recognize how much I DO accomplish! 🙂
(That said: I do keep a Master To-Do List … but I don’t work from it.)
The worst thing is that if you’re a prefectionist at the same time! I read somewhere that procrastinators are mostly perfectionists, but now I wonder if that’s true.
I don’t think so at all, but my current view might be influenced by watching nearly every one of my college students procrastinate so long there is no longer an option to act like a perfectionist. It’s all about getting it done well enough to pass.
Just found your site from just joining twitter, and as a female sometimes writer, most times procrastinator am intrigued by this subject. My thought is this: A writer worth his while is systemically a perfectionist, hence the desire to create his perfect world, or at least his definition of it. This, of course, is unattainable. The compulsion/writer of you, dictates you write. The elusiveness of the perfection dictates you mull, divert, throw your energies into the pieces of life around you that only require pieces of you. When I do this, ( and I do it most of the time) I try to do really humane things, so that at least I can contribute to the betterment of the pieces of life that already exist, as opposed to my imperfect-perfect piece of writing, always in the works, always in my soul, always in my head.
Fascinating thought! Thanks for swinging over & reading.