Unproductiveness of productive procrastination

The other day I heard about productive procrastination and the term sparked my curiosity. It is the act of being busy while still procrastinating.

Whaaat???

I hear you; I was confused too.

This is the less obvious sister of the procrastination we all are painfully familiar with. But while we are aware that we procrastinate when we choose to watch Netflix instead of working on that project that was due yesterday, when we procrastinate productively, we are unaware of the act. This is because we choose to keep ourselves busy working on other things. And because we are working and not being lazy, we don’t feel guilty. We don’t even realize what we are doing.

Productive procrastination in language learning

This relates to language learning as well. Many people wonder why their English is not improving, but they don’t understand that buying the next course and watching the next show in English is not going to improve their speaking skills until they actually start speaking.

I am guilty of this as well. Sometimes I catch myself dwelling on more research because I don’t want to write. But I trick myself into thinking that I am still working because I am doing research. Apparently many people procrastinate because they are afraid of producing something that doesn’t meet other people’s expectations. We often have a vision of how much we should be able to learn, write, or produce within a certain time, and if we feel that in reality we wouldn’t be able to match these expectations, we want to postpone the inevitable moment of disappointment.

The gift of special talent or inspiration?

The problem is that when we look at the work of the people whom we admire, we think these people are gifted with some kind of special talent or inspiration that we would never find. But the truth is that we just need to create a habit and stick with it. Sooner or later we will start seeing results. As the famous writer Stephen King says:

 

Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you’re going to be every day from nine ’til noon. or seven ’til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he’ll start showing up.

 

By the way, the word “muse” is feminine in my native Bulgarian, so I think when SHE decides to show up, I’ll make sure I’m here 😉.

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How about you? Are you an active procrastinator? Let me know in the comments.

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