# Procrastination is a good [[strategy]] By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2022-09-01 Despite what you may hear, there are many times when procrastination pays off. Sometimes things are challenging to complete because they shouldn't be completed or we simply don't know enough to make progress right now. There simply isn't enough time in the day to get everything done and, more often than not, these things have a tendency to resolve themselves. They either were not important or are not important anymore when conditions changed. For example, have you gone away on vacation, not checked your email, and then found out that a "big" problem was resolved without you doing anything? It feels good, but may make you ask: [[what's the point]]? These sorts of things happen regularly, but our bias towards [[All action, no progress|action and not progress]] often propels us to act now in this very moment. There are times when we absolutely should react quickly, but rarely this is the case. We should react quickly to help someone who is drowning literally or metaphorically. In other words, we should react quickly when immediate harm is present. Otherwise, it often pays to take a moment or two or three before reacting. This applies to all aspects of life. As [[Viktor Frankl]] said in [[Man's Search for Meaning]], “Forces beyond your [[control]] can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” This [[Negative Freedom|freedom]] to choose the path forward is a universal opportunity for humanity. Reacting all of the time throws away this freedom. If you take a step back to think about these principles in organizational terms, then you'll see the ongoing projects that shouldn't exist because someone reacted too quickly. The hallmark of these are [[The ritual of team meetings|recurring meetings]] where little progress is made, no one pays attention, and some unfortunate person is stuck trying to persuade the group to check things off of the virtual priority list. Everyone is hoping this thing will go away, but everyone remains silent. These kinds of projects would have benefited from procrastination. Forcing them to happen in the name of action is a waste. If the problem keeps surfacing, then it might be worth resolving, but it's your freedom to choose. #### Related Items [[Meetings]] [[Procrastination]] [[Stoicism]] [[Freedom]] [[Organizational Analytics]] [[Project Management]]