The Classic Procrastinator
The classic procrastinator is someone you and I know intimately — we've all been there. You know what you have to do, but starting feels daunting. So all of a sudden, the laundry bag is looking pretty full, you’re actually kind of hungry right now, and Instagram reels is just calling out your name.
The tasks people classically procrastinate on are as varied as the tasks they use to procrastinate. One person may be using schoolwork to put off starting a new exercise routine, while another is using exercise as a way to procrastinate on schoolwork. But the one thing all classic procrastinators have in common is awareness. The classic procrastinator is aware of what he should be doing, and he is aware that he is finding other things to do in order to avoid the more difficult task. Finally, he is aware that this kind of procrastination is undesirable and should be addressed — if only addressing it wasn't also a task he procrastinates on.
The Secret Procrastinator
The secret procrastinator is highly organized, good with deadlines, and does not identify as a procrastinator. He works with a pomodoro timer, maintains an elaborate Notion workspace, and might even be in an accountability group. When asked how he is doing, he replies “good, busy” and is celebrated for that because in modern hustle culture, being busy is a good thing. Sure, he is guilty of some classic procrastination too: he knows he could be calling his parents more often, getting more sleep, and eating fewer processed foods. But all in all, the secret procrastinator seems to have his life in order while the classic procrastinator looks on in envy.
That’s because his main procrastination happens in secret — secret from outsiders, and even from himself. The secret procrastinator puts off the ultimate task of finding one’s purpose and ensuring each day is spent meaningfully. He has already put in the work to “defeat” classic procrastination and rides high on the feeling of being “more productive” than the classic procrastinator. But his busyness becomes the perfect distraction for avoiding life’s bigger questions.
Classic procrastination is often resolved by the passage of time forcing the procrastinator into action as deadlines draw nearer. What makes secret procrastination so dangerous is the lack of a natural remedy. Counterproductively, society rewards them for being more productive, making it even harder to see the problem.
The Better Procrastinator
The better procrastinator may look like a secret procrastinator on the outside. What distinguishes him from the secret procrastinator is the way he thinks about attention. Attention is not an ordinary resource like food or money. Attention simply is — it's the medium through which all experience happens. You don't have attention, you are your attention.
The secret procrastinator believes the ultimate resource to be time. This encourages him to treat each fleeting second preciously. But it also causes him to try and accomplish as much as he can during his waking hours. The better procrastinator believes the ultimate resource to be attention. We don’t own time, we borrow it. We’re one slow reaction away from a fatal car accident, one doctor’s visit away from a terminal diagnosis. Attention is everything.
Attention: the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring others
Distraction◆: A stimulus, task, or event that draws attention away
Everything you do distracts your attention — it draws it away in some direction. What makes a distraction meaningful is the experience your attention gets from it, and perhaps more importantly, all the other experiences your attention was distracted from. Instead of being focused on making the most of his time, the better procrastinator is concerned with picking the most meaningful distractions. That means accepting that no one has enough time to do everything they want to. And it means deliberately procrastinating on less meaningful distractions which are unworthy of your attention.
Motivational Anxiety
How do classic procrastinators become secret procrastinators?
The natural state of being is classic procrastination. It’s hard to begin working on a difficult task, and so the path of least resistance is to rationalize doing something easier instead. Tools like pomodoro timers, accountability groups, and habit trackers can reduce the friction associated with starting a task, but these tools don’t answer the underlying question: what finally causes a classic procrastinator to take that first step?
For tasks with deadlines, an approaching deadline can create enough urgency to put a procrastinator to work. For tasks with no deadlines, let me introduce you to Joe.
Joe is a first-year Waterloo CS major. Like many of his peers, in a few years, he hopes to be working for a big tech company in the Bay Area or New York City. Joe knows that in addition to schoolwork, there are many non-deadlined tasks that will help set him up for landing top tier tech internships. One such particularly infamous activity is LeetCode.
Bringing yourself to solve LeetCode problems is difficult. Speaking anecdotally, there are two ways people overcome that initial hurdle:
- You realize that truly in your heart of hearts, you enjoy LeetCode
- You feel like everyone around you is LeetCoding and you don’t want to fall behind
I call the second method motivational anxiety◆. This is often the catalyst that propels me from classic to secret procrastination. If ever I fall into a rut, eventually I get too anxious about falling behind in the rat race that I’m able to get “back on the grind”, sad as it is to say out loud.
Productive Delusion
Suppose motivational anxiety pushes Joe to begin LeetCoding. Being the bright student he is, Joe improves quickly. The more time he spends solving LeetCode problems, the faster he can solve them. The more problems he solves, the better he gets at LeetCode. The better he gets, the more he enjoys it. Exploiting this virtuous cycle, Joe enters a dangerous state of secret procrastination that I call productive delusion.
Joe gets high off his own productivity. He thinks about much progress he has made over the past few months and rightfully becomes more confident in himself. Like Russell Crowe in Gladiator waiting for the next challenger to come out of the Coliseum gates, Joe is ready for a new challenge. Perhaps he starts developing a side project. Perhaps he joins a design team. Perhaps he does a good job at both of those too. Joe really thinks he’s unstoppable now, as he screams to the crowd: "Are you not entertained?"
Joe’s friends and classmates look at him and think, “wow, Joe really has everything figured out”. But is he a better procrastinator pursuing his passion or a secret procrastinator going through the same motions that everyone around him is doing? It depends. If Joe’s true passion is becoming the best software engineer he can be, then I would congratulate him on being a better procrastinator. But let’s be real, Joe is in Waterloo CS for the money. Sure, he’s been programming since middle school and enjoys it, but if he found himself with “infinite money” he would be doing something else. Speaking anecdotally again, I believe the majority of Waterloo CS majors are in this second camp.
Let’s suppose that with infinite money, Joe would travel the world and start a travel blog. As the days and weeks and months go by, the facade of productive delusion gives way to a creeping existential dread as he continues with his classes, extra-curriculars, and internship recruiting — is this really what I should be doing? I’ll optimize my resume, land the internship, get the return offer, keep working and making money… and then what?
Just as motivational anxiety was the catalyst for moving from classic to secret procrastination, this existential dread is the catalyst for moving from secret to better procrastination. It will never come from an external source, as only you know what the most meaningful way to distract your attention is. If Joe truly feels travel blogging is his calling, he’s got a couple of options:
- Option 1: Drop out and chase that passion!
- Option 2: Work hard, accumulate fuck you money, stop working, and then start traveling
- Option 3: Look for tech jobs that involve traveling and start the travel blog on the side.
Presented this way, Option 3 is a no brainer. It might not be as lucrative or prestigious as working at Google, but it would be more meaningful for Joe.
With this new vision in mind, Joe starts to distract more of his attention to finding and reaching out to travel bloggers working in the tech industry to learn about their careers◆. Chances are, LeetCode and his extracurriculars will still be helpful for his journey, but he can do these tasks without the existential dread at the back of his head, for he is a better procrastinator now.