A philosopher friend recently directed me to the work of one John Perry, a philosopher who writes about structured procrastination. A procrastinating philosopher you might say. Of course, I procrastinated for about 2 days before getting around to looking properly at his stuff. He says:
All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing.
Apart from being an accomplished procrastinator myself, I was recently looking into procrastination as a tool for positive action. A kind of “stick”, or negative driver if you will, that, by being something people want to avoid, acts as a catalyst inspiring positive action.
One can look at this as a sort of mental martial art, i.e. using a negative trait to your advantage. It’s worth reading his essay and browsing his site if you’ve ever thought of yourself as a procrastinator… while you should be doing something else of course…
Richard Muscat 