Your gifts aren’t ready yet? You’re a procrastinator!
If you see yourself in this last group, it’s almost certainly because you tend to procrastinate. A habit that sadly doesn’t get a Christmas truce (and trust me, I know…). The procrastinator is a species found at every age, of every gender, every class and every stripe. Also known as the “chronic latecomer”, they always prefer to put off until tomorrow the tasks they have to get done. This fascinating creature has prompted plenty of researchers to take a closer look.
While some researchers ask whether performance and procrastination are linked, others look at how our motivation affects our efficiency and our tendency to procrastinate. Could motivation act as both a moderator and a mediator?
If procrastination clearly holds back performance, what does that mean for the quality of your gifts?
Procrastination is very often cast as a drag on performance. To put it in festive terms, your last-minute gifts won’t be up to much, and you’ll have no one but yourself to blame! Many studies have found a negative correlation between procrastination and performance.
Last-minute shoppers, don’t despair just yet, because according to the study by Angela Hsin Chun Chu & (opens in new window) Jin Nam Choi (opens in new window), it’s worth telling apart two kinds of procrastinating behaviour:
- passive procrastination, simply putting off a task with no deadline attached, a sign of laziness,
- active procrastination, putting off a task until closer to its deadline so you can summon up all the motivation you need to get it done at the eleventh hour, on D-1 or D-2.
You’ve surely felt active procrastination at least once. When you’re pressed for time, you get things done. You stop second-guessing whether you actually feel like doing the task. It’s this kind of positive stress that fuels motivation and makes you more efficient, sometimes even more than if you’d started early! It’s not unlike the design sprint method, where you concentrate your design effort into a short window to perform better.
The takeaway on procrastination
So, in the end, no stress: there’s still time to put together some lovely gifts. Then again, best not to leave it too late either ;)
Either way, what we can take away is that if Father Christmas is a passive procrastinator and all these studies are 100% right, we’ll all be getting pretty underwhelming gifts at Christmas! So what’s his secret for such a fast creative process? The answer may lie in the design thinking approach, which helps you innovate and find creative solutions to complex problems.
Happy holidays to all…!
Bibliography:
- Rethinking Procrastination: Positive Effects of “Active” Procrastination Behavior on Attitudes and Performance. Angela Hsin Chun Chu & Jin Nam Cho
- Procrastination in Online Courses: Performance and Attitudinal Difference. Greg C Elvers, Donald J. Polzella, Ken Graetz
- Procrastination and personality, performance, and mood. Piers Steel, Thomas Brothen, Catherine Wambach
