Procrastination is Not Always a Bad Behavior!

Procrastination is a behavior that produces great stress. I believe this is so partially because Procrastination is misunderstood.

Wikipedia provides a definition of procrastination which I will quote here:

"Procrastination is the deferment or avoidance of an action or task to a later time. Psychologist and author Neil Fiore defines procrastination as: "a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision."

You can do a search on Wikipedia and find this definition when you search there for "Procrastination".

I think most of the researchers on procrastination are missing some valuable information. Most of the researchers I have read and the articles published approach procrastination much within the theme of the wikipedia definition above. In other words, most folks believe there is something wrong with you if you habitually are a procrastinator. Again, in at least 50% of the cases in my estimation, this is inaccurate!

According to the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator (MBTI) some people will naturally display "procrastinating" behavior of one form or another simply because it is a part of their natural, instinctive, very healthy self!

This is to say that if part of your MBTI type is "P" for Perceiving, then psychologically you at times are just waiting to see what is going to happen next. If you are waiting to see what will happen next you will naturally put things off, or "procrastinate" from time to time.

This fly’s in the face of most articles on the subject of Procrastination as mentioned above. In fact, some consider habitual procrastination to be a sign of mental illness! My goodness sakes folks it just isn’t necessarily so.

Understand that "Perceivers" have a natural, in the womb imprint to; among other things be focused upon things spontaneous.

They will naturally take a more spur-of-the-moment approach to just about everything. This "perceiving" attitude may also express itself as an unstructured, natural, off-the-cuff, unplanned approach to things and people.

Perceivers also find that their natural attitude to things and people may be more open, flexible, tentative, adaptive, playful, casual (oh this is one of my favorite descriptors for Perceivers!).

In addition "Perceivers" may find rules, timelines, structure, planning to be irritating; and, while not impossible to achieve, the Perceiver may have to work harder to fulfill them.

Perceivers will also, at times, more naturally be curious, more open-minded then some, completely (or in various major degrees) unaware of time, they actually walk slower and slouch more (don't get mad at me here) and create more clutter than others.

Well, I could go on and on; but, the point is that the Perceiver will exhibit these above mentioned behaviors naturally from a pre-birth imprint to do so; not because they are psychologically flawed or dysfunctional.

And, putting things off which we call "Procrastinating" is one of those behaviors the Perceivers are known for.

Now, America's culture is less accepting of Procrastination and in many circumstances of life what one may call chronic procrastination can get one in trouble.

If my job demands for example, that I not put things off, and I am a Perceiver I just need to work a bit harder to Procrastinate less.

Oh, it may not be easy but please find hope and encouragement in knowing that you may be a procrastinator for good healthy reasons!

By the way, the "Perceivers" of the world (our procrastinators) are also absolute masters of getting things done at the last minute. Now think about that for a minute. That means they have natural, healthy, non-stressed ability to face last minute, unexpected changes and do what needs to be done to handle the change with less stress than others.

If I'm running any operation I want to know who they are so I can know who to rely on at the last minute to get things done.

Well, what is your MBTI? Are you a perceiver? If so, congratulations....you are supposed to be and if you procrastinate allot...in this way of looking at it....you are supposed to! It is healthier than less healthy for you so give yourself some slack; take heart and show us non-perceivers how to take things as they come!

Return from Procrastination Article to main Article Page