Go ahead – put it off another week

No matter how on top of things you are, there will always be a tempting moment in life where putting off the work that should be getting done becomes all too appealing. For those that welcome this action—or rather inaction—with ease, National Procrastination Week might just be the most convenient holiday to ever grace the calendar.

Procrastination is defined as the act of delaying or postponing something. It’s a very familiar concept to a lot of people, and an unsurprising occurrence in places like schools or offices where completing tasks is a primary goal.

Procrastination isn’t limited to just those either; mundane activities like household chores or even making important phone calls are all tasks that can become victims of procrastination.

All things considered, this prevalent urge to put off tasks to a later date should sound pretty irrational, right? After all, it’s natural for us to expect consequences when it comes to delaying important tasks—so why do we still actively choose to do it?

Psychologists have pondered the same question about this intrinsic phenomenon, and they’ve come up with a couple of reasons. Theladders.com identifies five main ones as to why we indulge procrastination: perfectionism, fear, lack of accountability, overwhelm, and distraction. These are the common catalysts that usually drive our thought process to go “do it later,” whether it could be helped or not.

But despite the negative things it’s associated with, procrastination isn’t just an implication of laziness, sloth, or inactivity. Some people put off work for the sake of their mental and emotional health, giving themselves time to take a break and even gain their flow of productivity back.

Procrastination provides a ton of benefits when we utilize it in the right manner at the right time, like during creative projects where we could take advantage of the time we used to delay our work to become more open for better, divergent ideas.

Of course, not everyone welcomes the thought of postponing tasks, especially when an impending deadline may lead to more stress than when you finish your work when it is given. But to the procrastination practitioners out there, riding out this habit of intentional delaying isn’t as detrimental as it’s thought to be, and starting from March 1, there won’t be a need to look for an excuse to succumb to those “I’ll get to it later” pleasures, as National Procrastination Week encourages just that.

To make it more practical, the powers that support this week provided a total of fourteen days to get that week done. Put off that piece of work, take the day off, and seek some instant gratifications instead! Or you could just do what you feel like, you’ve got the time.