Finding productivity in procrastination

For the past few years I have been obsessed with the dream of achieving maximum efficiency. My reading tastes have migrated gradually from fantasy and fiction to pop-science and the unfortunately titled ‘self-help’ section. This was not a conscious move in any way, but a general tendency propelled by the need to feel like an actual adult. I mean…once you cross a certain age, you’re supposed to feel like one, right? Right? I mean really, I still struggle handling my financials and filing returns. And its been 10+ years since I took the leap of faith leaving home to a foreign city for work. And I still to this day feel like I’m still winging it.

And that applies to a truckload of things.It makes me question at times whether everyone is faking it. How can so many people be at the top of the game, making things work out for them. Juggling careers, kids and cholesterol issues like it was genetically placed in their DNA. The only logical explanation would be that it was all a facade. And that completely makes sense considering our exposure to the lives of people outside our inner circle is only through a finely curated set of social posts and updates. And that’s how I bought into this game. This competitive need to roll up my sleeves and show the others, that I can play this too. And so I dove in headfirst into an endless ocean of content that the internet is awash with. Blogs and books are great, but nothing sucks you in like the fascinating cult of productivity on Youtube. Even if you mildly prance around the Schwarzschild radius of the black hole that is oft labelled “Productivity Porn”, you’re more likely to get sucked in and as a by-product obsess on it.

Now I do realise, I talk about this particular aspect of my interest with fairly negative connotations. That’s probably the result of my tendency to indulge in a lot of hyperbole. Truth is, there have been a fair share of improvements that have come out as a result of soaking myself within the context of internet productivity lessons. I practiced an assortment of things from waking up 5:30 every morning, wearing the same thing everything to combat decision fatigue, cold showers, the Wim Hot method, fasting to fight brain fog etc. Whatever trend the Interwebs threw at me, I lapped it up. But just like every hedonistic treadmill, the act of adaptation always kicked in and there was always a new high score to chase.

Now the point of this post might not be to throw a spotlight on the things I practiced to achieve some sense of productivity induced balance in my life. It is mostly about the internal fight that ensues which pushes me towards the path of wanting productivity.

I always saw procrastination as a huge demon I had to battle every day to overcome this pit of inactivity. Ironically, a large part of me combatting procrastination was through watching hours of content on YouTube on…you guessed it… how to stop procrastination. This battle became even more severe while navigating myself towards the light in the throes of anxiety and depression. When even a task like “brush your teeth”, was something I checked off a to-do list just to feel a kick of achievement.

It took me a while to embrace a sense of compassion for myself. To be okay with things. Cause the motivating factor to be more productive to “fix things” was constantly met with the realisation that I’d only want to fix things cause I felt they were broken. The initial acceptance made a whole lot of difference. To accept things the way they are AND THEN work upwards from there. It’s like this, instead of acknowledging that we’ve to pull ourself out of this metaphorical pit, we just get comfortable with the pit and work out way upwards. This gestalt shift was fairly subtle but made a world of difference on how much I was beating myself up for not getting things done.

Weirdly, my fitness journey also started getting better in parallel. Earlier the need to exercise was always borne as a need to combat my body dysmorphia, obsessing about things that weren’t right and the need to FIX them. Later when the acceptance came in, it became about incrementally building from where I was. And It has made a world of a difference.

I’m in no way glorifying procrastination, and the consequences it can lead to. This is solely about the change in perception of how I look at it now. The voice that I spoke to myself in. How it changed from a nagging self deprecating drill sergeant to a kinder understanding friend. And that has made me more comfortable in being okay with procrastinating. Which in turn has taken the pressure of constantly being productive and in turn actually helped me be more effective. This post might be a testament to it. For now.