A Detailed Guide on How To Become a Better Procrastinator

Procrastination is just a reminder that your car needs to be washed.

A few months ago, I took the Myer Briggs personality test. I was supposed to be working on a project that was due in two days, but my mind drifted, as per usual. I had opened up a new tab and into google searched ‘how to stay focused’.It was one of the many times I’d fallen into procrastinating.

I clicked on the article that ranked first. By the fourth line I had stopped reading, it was informative but uninteresting; I hadn’t learned anything new. Mindfulness, sleep, meditation, I had tried it all. And none of them seemed to work for me.

Right before I exited the page, returning to my search. A strange ad on the right corner of the page jumped out at me. Plastered on it was a yellow smiley emoji and underneath, written in bold letters, read personality test. Amused, I clicked on it. After all, it had been a while since I partook in a little quiz.

I sifted through each question as fast as I could and excitedly hit enter.

The result that I had been waiting for came back. I had scored INTJ. The abbreviation stood for intuitive thinking and judging. As I read through the result, my jaw hit the floor, It was as if every thought or action I had exercised my entire life had been scrutinized and studied. How could one test reveal so much about me? I thought.

But it was now 3 pm, and I still hadn’t made progress on the project, so I decided to intentionally kill the curious cat and come back to it once the day was done.

That night I spent hours researching my new identity, the Intj, I came across many people in the YouTube comments section that sounded just like me. They were all blunt and highly opinionated. It felt as if I was being initiated into a cult. One video, in particular, caught my attention. It was titled 6 weaknesses of Intj. Intrigued to find out how my new identity might be flawed, I clicked.

The result.

Inferior SE function, SE standing for extroverted sensing. In short, it meant a poor ability to handle chaos and disorder. I was four minutes into the video and already stood with my hands on my head in complete and utter disbelief. How was it possible to know this much about me? I thought.

The disorganised procrastinator

Because of my poor ability to handle chaos and disorder, I was usually a mess, disorganised, and unwilling to deal with all the trivial things. Like watering the plant or folding my socks. My avoidance of sorting out the mess only resulted in even more disorder.

See, I’d always had a pretty bad habit of being unorganized. It was nothing new. But I struggled with an even bigger problem, and that was procrastination. I was notorious for being a ginormous procrastinator. The worst kind.

Here’s what I found out recently: There are two types of procrastinators in this world: The passive and the active.

Passive procrastinators prefer to preoccupy themselves with menial tasks just like active procrastinators. But a key difference between the two is that active procrastinators engage in menial tasks that benefit them in some sort of way. I was undeniably the passive type.

Here’s an example.

Mark is procrastinating from completing his homework for school, he’s playing Call of Duty again. Sigh.

Adam is reading a book about theoretical physics, great lad. Just wished he’d finished his homework first.

Active procrastinators do meaningful things whilst they hold out on important stuff. It helps to clear their head, cleans their palette — if you will. So that when they jump back into work, they feel more energised and ready.

At the very least, and in Adam’s case, even if the more important task (his homework) was not to be completed. He’d still be left with a solid understanding of Quantum Gravity. The same can’t be said for Mark.

The journey from passive to active

I was suddenly hit with a genius idea. Why not solve my disorganization with procrastination? If I could successfully trade in internet surfing and social media scrolling with a task that would positively benefit me, I could finally make that transition from passive to active.

Here’s what I did:

I grabbed a sticky note and wrote down all the things I needed to sort out. One by one. It turned into an embarrassingly long list of things I had failed to do during my existence. Sorting out my wardrobe understandably was at the top of that list. And closer to the bottom was buying a new shoe rack. Ours had broken down a few months ago.

I stuck it on the side of my laptop. The most visible place in my case, considering I pretty much work out of there. And waited until my procrastinator instincts kicked in.

Day two and I just finished writing another article, It was time for me to start my next piece of writing for the day. I had previously set the goal of writing 2,000 words every day and my quota for the day had not been met, so I continued diligently. Until I needed a toilet break. On my way upstairs, I ended up opening my email. Procrastination attempt strike one. What a shame, It was going so well.

A little glad that I get to test out my master plan. I headed into my bedroom after my quick trip to relieve myself and started sorting out my wardrobe.

The next day I cleaned the mirrors in the bathroom, and on the third day, I revived my partially dead aloe plant.

The feeling of getting things done when you’re really just procrastinating is honestly refreshing. It feels as if I was cheating the world. People admired me for my ‘fake’ discipline.

I now look at procrastination through a window of positivity. It is a reminder that I needed to clean my car, wash my makeup brushes, or read that book that I have been putting off for weeks.

The Takeaway

Isn’t that you should not procrastinate? It’s leveraging your boredom and/or laziness to get done the meaningful stuff done. Stuff like tidying your desk or taking your vitamins.

Don’t settle for being a passive procrastinator, be ambitious and take it one step further. Ditch the PlayStation controller or the Twitter scroll for a task that will positively benefit you.

Remember, you are in control of how your day is spent. Try to make every minute meaningful. Start today and write that list of tasks you’ve been persistently dodging for god knows how long. Be the active procrastinator.