The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is … procrastination?

Seen on the internet:

Procrastination is a head game, that’s for sure. What makes some tasks turn into monsters so looming that we lose all sense of reason, including a sense of the actual effort it would take to get rid of them?

I procrastinate harder with certain deadlines, especially ones where the assignment timeframe is long and the milestones entirely up to me. I’ve noticed I also procrastinate more spectacularly on projects that entail “blank canvas” mental exertion — ones that aren’t building off a past body of work or where I have to organize and structure a chaotic pile of source material, and ones where I feel unsure about staking my ground in a crowded field of research or thinking.

As agonizing as feverish bouts of procrastination are, there may actual be some good in them when it comes to creative work. Going slow and delaying your conclusion (aka procrastinating) can be exactly what you need to do if you’re trying to land an original idea or a creative design.

In studying the habits of creative people, organizational psychologist Adam Grant found that procrastination (practiced judiciously) helps people to be more original. It’s “a vice when it comes to productivity, but it can be a virtue for creativity,” Grant believes.

“Take Leonardo da Vinci. He toiled on and off for 16 years on the Mona Lisa. He felt like a failure. He wrote as much in his journal. But some of the diversions he took in optics transformed the way that he modeled light and made him into a much better painter.”

While you’re procrastinating, the task you’ve temporarily abandoned is still active in the back of your mind. Taking longer to finish gives you time to consider alternative ideas you might otherwise miss if you’re working in a quick, linear way. Procrastination could lead to an unexpected leap that might be the difference between an ordinary end result and an extraordinary one.

Sounds good in theory, right? In reality, it may be more difficult to know when enough procrastinating is enough — that tipping point in which the benefits of delaying are maxed out and it’s time, at last, to get going.

Have you ever benefited from procrastinating — either on purpose or by chance? Since then, have you changed your internal dialogue about it? Is it a dragon you fight, dance with, or don’t even mess with?

A procrastinating gnome. Seen two weeks ago in woods near Maple Valley, Washington.