Procrastination kills knowledge

Procrastination - the enemy of Knowledge 

I will not talk about the reason(s) why we procrastinate. For the purpose of this post we will work with this axiom that we all procrastinate. If you take a break from reading this - I'm sure you can name at least 2 things that you're actively procrastinating on. Not things you've scheduled later that you could do right now, not that kind. Procrastinating in the sense that you are supposed to do something now, something that you had scheduled earlier to be done now, or by now - that you're not doing or have left in between. 

Don't worry you're not alone. 

The correct framing of procrastination is that we don't want to start the work, not that we don't want to work at all. Even though most of us colloquially say - "I don't want to work", what we actually mean is - "I don't want to start working". Which is why the inertia to work is the maximum where you're beginning something rather than in the middle or at the end. I like to always explain this issue using the concept of static and rolling friction. Put simply - to move an object at rest you need more force to start moving the object than to keep it moving (due to the built up momentum of course). It is always harder to start something that to keep continue doing it - thus in order to get things done - we simply need to just start doing them. As I argued in another blog, we're masters at simplifying things and it is just a matter of starting. We've got the rest covered.  

Look at the tasks you procrastinate on - you'll find that after a time it'll be uniform even across things that you're interested in. Then it wouldn't matter if the task ahead of you is boring, difficult or interesting - the kind of work doesn't matter. It is the idea of starting it that makes you not start it and thus leads to further procrastination.

I had never thought deeply about procrastination until I had to write a full blown editorial piece and a shorter opinion piece for a center I'm working for - on something (which by the way I was very interested and excited to learn) that I had been procrastinating for over two weeks. I started after the deadline and I had to sit down without distractions for 6 continuous hours to complete them. Of course I hated the output - and this was when it struck me. Procrastinating had stolen from me all of the knowledge and perspective that I could have gained if I had engaged with and explored the topic on time. I had a flashback to all of the papers I had written in a hurry - tales of superficial knowledge ensued. If ideally I would have spent 20 hours reading about that subject - after procrastinating I ended up reading it only for 2 or 3 hours. Procrastination had killed my (prospective) knowledge. And whenever I was done with such (hurried) tasks, I'd just find relief in the fact that I was done with it and close the chapter. All that knowledge - all the things I could have found interesting, all the linkages I could have made in my mind, all the articles I could have further read were now gone (forever likely). I now had one piece less in my knowledge puzzle. And that to me is non - negotiable.

A graph to put things in perspective: 

The initial version of this graph was drawn on a post it note which now rests on my laptop

For any task - there are two things you need to look at. First is the initial effort (along X axis) and second is your interest in that thing (along Y axis). My theory is that you actually need to actively put in only a minimum amount of effort (here I describe effort as you putting in the work even if you'd rather be lazing off - against your wish basically) i.e. IEo after which you'll find your curiosity gliding you through your work. Once you reach that stage, the amount of information you've read or perspective that you've gained will automatically self propel you to go even deeper in the topic (a natural tendency for anyone who is curious). Your interest will multiply manifolds after you cross IEo because it's just a matter of discovering some leads and open ended questions post which you'd want to learn more. The IEo is the initial setting up of the search, reading a few introductory articles and the grunt work of actually figuring out the problem statement. Once you do that, you're likely to increasingly read more and widely - to gain more knowledge and information. 

Procrastination is bad because it either stops you from reaching IEo or severely constrains your post IEo reach.

(IEp1 and IEp2 are points at which you stop to put in more efforts to read more or acquire more knowledge)

There are two cases. In first - procrastination stops you from reaching the threshold value of IEo by making sure that you've procrastinated so much that you cannot access and read as much initial materials because of paucity of time. This scenario is when you hastily write whatever you come across and don't pay much attention to the things you're reading. This is the worst scenario as you have to push yourself through (due to lack of interest) and you don't have enough time to acquire enough knowledge to even become interested in what you're reading. It's a lose-lose. The second case is when you do cross the threshold value but the paucity of time makes sure that you stop making the efforts after reaching IEp2 mostly because you've run out of time to read more. In both the cases - you're likely to breathe a sigh of relief after you're done with the work (because you had to do in 6 hours what should ideally be done in 20) and are very less likely to go back to reading more about it, as the task is over now. By reducing the absolute time you can afford to spend on reading about that topic - procrastination kills knowledge. In the counterfactual - you'd have started reading about the topic on time and would have the time to explore the full range of your interest - which in turn would have not only made the task easier due to the self propelling interest you'd have generated (as compared to the agony you had to put yourself through to read and write) but also would have expanded your knowledge and perspective manifolds. Every time I finally do the work which I have severely procrastinated on - I regret not being able to read more. 

So my advice (although unrequited as always) is to look at procrastination as something that will leave you worse off with lesser knowledge that you would have had - had you not procrastinated. I'm positive that for curious individuals this framing works better. Because it hits where it hurts the most.