Use Procrastination and Mind Wandering for Better Decision Making

Procrastination. What scene comes to your mind when you hear the word, lost opportunities? horrors of working at the last moments of a deadline and dreading yourself for delaying it till the last moment yet ending up doing the same next time?

Source: Guts

If you’re unfamiliar with the word, let me break it down for you. However, I am sure you may not know the formal term but you’ll definitely relate to the phenomenon.

“Procrastination is the act of delaying or putting off tasks until the last minute, or past their deadline. Some researchers even define procrastination as a "form of self-regulation failure characterized by the irrational delay of tasks despite potentially negative consequences."

In college, when you were assigned a certain task, let’s say to write a thousand-word essay on any social issue, and the deadline is due in a week. How you would act in such a situation, will you immediately start working on the project as soon as you get home, or in the coming days? Or you’ll forget about it, and enjoy your week, and start working on it only by the end of the week? Similar can go for any professional task.

If you’re one of those lucky and dedicated ones that can easily get to the task as soon as it is assigned, then good for you. But if the former decision sounds familiar then my friend, you’re one of the million procrastinators

“Procrastination is extremely prevalent,” Piers Steel, a business professor at the Universit of Calgary, noted in a 2007 study. “Estimates indicate that 80 to 95 percent of college students engage in procrastination, approximately 75 percent consider themselves procrastinators, and almost 50 percent procrastinate consistently and problematically.”

There could be many reasons why a person procrastinates, be it a student or a professional, but there is no ambiguity about the fact that it is very commonly observed among all these days, especially the Netizens.

To read more about the reasons behind procrastination and how to overcome it, you can read this article.

Meanwhile, I’ve been in a procrastination loop for years. It was an adventurous strategy to bring some drama into boring tasks for me at times, and sometimes, I did just because I wasn’t feeling like doing the work. However, the self-consciousness about my performance in a certain task was also a reason behind some delays. And it was going fine, as  I had plenty of time to waste. But things change as soon as you step into practical life. You’re demanded to perform ‘best’ on daily basis and lacking in anything even for a day can bring horrible consequences.

Being a freelancer, I had the advantage of ‘Result Only Work Environment’. I am not required to stay put for a set time, I just have to complete the given tasks within the assigned time. This brings me the benefit as well as the drawback. As I am physically present in the office or an official setting, my punctuality and work quality would define my skills therefore, they have to be perfect and up to the mark that demands time! And when I had wasted all the time in procrastinating, there was not much left, on some occasions, to work up to the client’s standards. Such an incident led to the loss of my client, and it didn’t take long for a few others to follow. That was the moment I realized I had to find some alternative to this ‘habit’ (Yes, it’s a habit).

Chris Bailey Mind Model

Chris Bailey is a Canadian writer and productivity consultant. He proposed this model of mind wandering in his book, ‘hyperfocus’. It’s ironic, for sure. (Also, did you notice that my mind is always wandering? – thus, Maham's wandering mind. Well, it wasn’t derived from this model, I can assure you that) Meanwhile, he proposed that his wandering mind model will help you to in fact focus more. Instead of roaming around freely, you can use different strategies to utilize the same procrastinating phenomenon to your benefit. How? Let’s see.

Source: A Life of Productivity

Creative mind-wandering isn’t mentally passive and it's not quite the same as running on auto-pilot to end up finding yourself in the middle of doing something and you are completely blank of how you ended up here.

In his book, Chris Bailey says there are three modes to mind wandering:

1.       Capture mode

Capture mode is all about letting your mind wander, and see where it goes but capture what comes up! This way, you will be able to connect with your subconscious mind and get better and more original ideas.

2.       Problem crunching

This strategy is that you keep a problem 'loosely' in mind and let your mind wander for a while. You will surely lose track a lot of times, but it will help you get better solutions rather than sticking to the problem and thinking hard and only about it. It will surely give you a headache, not sure about a solution.

3.       Habitual mode

A Japanese renowned writer, Haruki Murakami has also shared this strategy in one of his novels, ‘The Wind-up Chronicles’. The strategy is that you do your regular chores or the simplest task that does not require you to invest mental energy. House chores are the most suitable option for practicing it as you do them daily to most often, thus you’re conditioned to the process. This way, you can do something, focus on the task at hand, while at the same time think about the issue or something at the subconscious level, without formally thinking.

Haruki’s character loved ironing clothes whenever he had some decision to make. He ironed all his wardrobe in an intense situation. Well, I wouldn’t recommend taking it this far but sometimes, distracting your mind partially from a difficult task or decision can really help you to ‘hyperfocus’ on it.