alt Hacker NewsThis is ketamine for procrastinators. Use at your own risk, YMMV.
We postpone not by choice, but by indecisiveness. Not just the 'things that will solve themselves', but also the things that will loom bigger and bigger over us until the built up stress breaks the veil.
It works, even very well as long as you also have the right skill combinations to deliver very fast eventually, but the cost is stress and in the longer term burnout and depression.
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It’s about being able to divine which will resolve itself vs which won’t - and that’s a balance of probabilities, rather than certainty.
It’s a bit like advanced chicken. You’ve gotta be really sure that that 18 wheeler bearing down on you is Not Your Problem.
On the one hand I agree, but on the other hand I think it can be useful to examine both sides of ones vices. For instance, by studying delay as a legitimate technique you may come to realize that you have been subconsciously doing this. Just poorly and in the wrong situations. And you can ask yourself when you feel the urge to procrastrinate "is this the right time to delay? are there important things I should wait for before doing this?". And if there is then you can procrastrinate with good conscience and if there isn't then you have an additional argument for doing it now.
Going out on a limb with my speculation, I think it could even remove psychological fuel from the fire. By more clearly knowing when the behavior is and isn't appropriate, it will mean that when it seems inappropriate it will also be inappropriate, so performing the behavior when it seems inappropriate wil not be successful or rewarded or strengthened.
For a lot of people postponement isn't a strategic move