Does procrastination boost your creativity?

Well, it’s that time of the year again! College exams are just around the corner, and I just feel like had a month’s time for preparation, but now I am panicking. If you are just like me, you too might have put off important things to be done and are likely to get stressed at some point in time.

But did you know there is a particular way to procrastinate? Try to look at procrastination as something from being appearing to delay things to giving yourself a reasonable amount of time to perform an activity. Meanwhile, you can gather your thoughts with solutions which have a creative aspect to them.

Get some motivation

If you also are a member of the procrastination league. Then you probably must have heard of them.

1) Leonardo da Vinci

The famous painter and most important procrastinator, Leonardo da Vince took over 16 years to finish the Mona Lisa. His work, The Last Supper, only took three years to be completed as a patron got frustrated and threatened to cut off his payment.
His habit of taking back up years in painting is also reflected in his quote – ‘ Art is never finished, only abandoned’.

2) Victor Hugo

Writers also have a bad reputation of procrastinating and when you are a famous one, it’s even harder to stay on the task. Hugo, a Famous French poet and novelist, was apparently troubled with instances of procrastination while preferring to do anything rather than work. For his book The Hunchback of Notre Dame, he locked himself inside his house and nothing but a knitted grey shawl which reached till his toes.
The uniform is said to have suited his productivity for he finished the novel weeks before the deadline.

3) Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank is known to be one of America’s greatest architects. His creations involved embracing technology to make the design accessible for all. The Guggenheim Museum, New York depicts one of his iconic work.
But he wasn’t always focused as he once found himself in a tight spot after being commissioned to work with Edgar Kauffman. He didn’t draw anything before the meeting and under pressure, drew quick plans for a new building which turned out to be impressive.

4) Bill Clinton

Yes, even the former president has been known to be a procrastinator. Bill Clinton had a tough time getting work done. He is known for not staying updated on a project causing delays. Time magazine even published an article on his laziness titled ‘ Learning to be lazy’ in 1994. Even many of his speeches were rewritten just a few hours before the event. While his aides already prepared the speeches beforehand, he made changes while the pressure was at its peak.

5) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is known to be of the most beloved poets of all time. Despite being well acclaimed for his work, he is known to have a hard time writing and instead spend time on other things. He preferred to work in fragments, with failing to produce lengthy writings for his publishers. The famous poem, ‘Kubla Khan’ was never finished and that piece as we know is his most loved work.

A lot of these famous and incredibly creative people have found it hard to focus, but it didn’t stop them from being successful. The best of creative ideas are often hard to come by, and procrastination does play an interesting role in helping to realize them.

Common causes of procrastination

1) Fear of the outcome

It can be the fear of failing or dealing with the change which happens after we succeed. And sometimes it is simply our fear of coming out as a fool.

2) Appearing to be helpless

We look at a task and feel we don’t have the required skills to conquer it. The task seems complex and we try to avoid it by assuming to be un-resourceful.

3) Lack of Energy/ Laziness

Getting started with a task seems intimidating, and you may abstain from it. You feel worked out and exhaustion makes you put your dreams on hold.

4) Being Perfect

Looking to be a perfectionist? Well, it may be tempting to stick on to something, until you hope to become a perfectionist. A desire to achieve perfectionism can slow down your ability to work.

5) Lack of Motivation

A job looks important to you, but you are unable to find out a way to carry it forward. For example, procrastinating about a tax return. Even though it is mandatory, you may not feel motivated to work towards filling it.

In the end, if you are going to procrastinate, you should take out the time to understand it and make the most of it.

Here are some of the techniques to help you gain an upper hand.

1) Fix an end time

While working, you might consider stopping at some point. Before finding a stopping point for the day, identify a place where you can resume easily from the next day onwards.
By making this happen, you will be able to handle the bouts of procrastination which can affect when you don’t have a starting point for the next day.
Take, for example, if you stop reading in the middle of a line, you’ll have only half of the information, and you might not be able to save it. Unfinished work is the cause of blockage in your mind. So channel your inner self to end the day’s work at a set place.

2) Follow the Pomodoro technique

To stop from losing interest, you can start off taking breaks in between, while continuing work in small durations. You can take around five to ten-minute break after every fifty minutes and resume work. The pause is just not taken from work; your mind will be working out new ways to create a new masterpiece.

3) Don’t just dive in a project

Take out the time to organize your thoughts and actions, to get clarity on the project. It can be as simple as removing out the tits-bits on your desk to clear the clutter and set new priorities. It can also mean thinking about the action to be performed during a task or a new approach which may be required to solve a problem.

Moving in the right direction

Going to productive procrastination is helpful in many ways to improve creativity. Depending on your situation, it is important to think beforehand about planning your goals and priorities. With the balanced approach, you will have the time to collect your thoughts and ideas together.