Amygdala speaks: On productive mediocrity and creative procrastination*

Finding it extremely difficult to find time to write of late, the plan is to write on my commute till balance in my universe is restored :)

It is a restless evening of my vacation. I find myself keyed up at the thought of nothing to do -- it is an anomaly in my world of too many things and too little time. My restlessness builds up even more because I feel disconnected from the world- no Internet, no cellular coverage, even the idiot box is absent here-- although I usually abhor it, I find myself wishing for it.

I am cornered to pick up that one book I packed, and I hate that I'm forced to read it rather than choosing to like I always do. I reluctantly pick it up, and it happens to be Adam Grant's "Originals". I start reading and I'm effortlessly drawn in by Grant's magic spell. And that's when the inspiration for this article struck!

As my regular readers know, I have many times bemoaned the fact that I'm a chronic procrastinator. It is something that I'd name as my top failing and vice. I have wondered countless times - if only I didn't procrastinate, how much more could I accomplish? I've also suffered from immense amounts of guilt whenever I indulge in procrastination, and have spent quite a bit of time introspecting over why I procrastinate and how I could avoid it. My observations culminated in the fact that I procrastinate important things, and that they remain on the back burner of my mind even while I'm not consciously working on them. The first I had labelled as another peculiar failing of mine-- why on earth was I so punctual when it came to random chores like laundry and packing, and contrarily tending to postpone every single important task at hand? Lamentable, I thought. The second--even when I lazed around with a book all day, that one thing I'd put off would incessantly nag me, my mind iterating over it in an infinite loop. This only added to my cumulative guilt and stress; I reasoned, and I stressed more about stressing over it!

Here comes Grant, and uproots decades of my thought with one question : what if this whole process is beneficial? I pause for a moment, and then it strikes me as ironically humorous. In the enormous amount of time I've spent thinking about this, it never once occurred to me to question if procrastination could actually benefit me. Before I even read the rest of what he has to say on the subject, I have a feeling of jigsaw pieces falling into place. My curiosity abounds as I proceed.

Grant reasons that in any task that entails creative effort, procrastination benefits us. This is primarily because of the same reason that I previously mentioned--the task still remains on the back burner of our minds while we do other things. When this happens, our brains engage in what is called divergent thinking, which involves considering a wide range of original ideas rather than foreclosing on the first idea. As a result, procrastinating a creative task and then working on it yields a better result than working on it immediately. Mind you, this is all very conditional and selective. It doesn't mean that procrastinating everything results in miracles-- it only works when coupled with an innate desire to accomplish what you wish to in the first place. Secondly, it also relies on the fact that you let your mind chew on the idea while you do something else. And the more diverse that activity, the better you benefit from it. I also have a feeling that if it's something artistic and involves your right brain, the results would be even better. (Haven't gotten further in the book, so I'm not sure if this is part of what Grant has to say:))

There have been multiple studies that demonstrate this. Excerpting a particularly compelling piece of historical evidence in support of this theory:

It may not be a coincidence that some of the most original thinkers and inventors in history have been procrastinators. A prime example is Leonardo da Vinci, whose original accomplishments spanned painting and sculpting, architecture and music, math and engineering, geology and cartography, and anatomy and botany. Scholars estimate that da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa on and off for a few years starting in 1503, left it unfinished, and didn’t complete it until close to his death in 1519. His critics believed he was wasting his time dabbling with optical experiments and other distractions that kept him from completing his paintings. These distractions, though, turned out to be vital to his originality. As historian William Pannapacker explains: Leonardo’s studies of how light strikes a sphere, for example, enable the continuous modeling of the “Mona Lisa”and “St. John the Baptist.”His work in optics might have delayed a project, but his final achievements in painting depended on the experiments. . . . Far from being a distraction—like many of his contemporaries thought—they represent a lifetime of productive brainstorming, a private working out of the ideas on which his more public work depended. . . . If creative procrastination, selectively applied, prevented Leonardo from finishing a few commissions—of minor importance when one is struggling with the inner workings of the cosmos—then only someone who is a complete captive of the modern cult of productive mediocrity . . . could fault him for it. 

I now look back at my own life, and I find numerous examples that support this theory. If you know a bit of psychology, then you'll probably accuse me of confirmation bias, but pray hear me out. Whenever I'm writing something, I subconsciously fall into this practice of letting it stew in my head for a while before I pen it down. My mind churns it over while I'm doing various other things, and I find that this is really helpful in amalgamating my thought process into one coherent narrative. That way, when I actually start writing, I have most of the material edited beforehand. The best of my writing has been this way. Whereas when I impulsively sit down to write as soon as I have an idea, I find that the breadth and depth of my thought is rather stunted. Earlier in my college days, when I had to prepare for presentations or talks, I'd make the slides quite close to the deadline-- but I'd be chewing on what I wanted to convey and how best to articulate it a good time prior to actually working on it.

I have also found that having a diverse mix of activities helps quite a bit in the back burner creativity; it is one of the primary reasons why I advocate and follow breadth in life. For instance, when I spend some time on music/writing and then get back to a problem I'm trying to solve, I find that my outlook is broader and better. A former mentor of mine was a painter, and he used to say that sketching made him better understand programming concepts. There are millions of examples to corroborate this I'm sure, but you get my drift. Breadth does not restrict depth, it is one of the primary precursors to creativity and depth.

In conclusion, selective procrastination can be very beneficial. The next time you find yourself putting off something, introspect if you're using divergent thinking or merely whiling away your time. This way, you can actually channel procrastination to yield creative results-- imagine relaxing peacefully while your brain does all the work on shaping and reworking your idea. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? That's creative procrastination for you.:)

*The title contains phrases from the same book, credits to Adam Grant.