The Next Meeting of the Procrastinator’s League…
…has been postponed. Here we introduce another mythical family, the Procrastinators. What can the Head Staff do for them?
The Head Room. The staff members sit around in comfortable chairs. A sign on the back wall reads “SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PROCRASTINATOR.”
Vulcan: It depends on what the Procrastinators want done. Do they want to keep procrastinating? Do they want to stop procrastinating?
Un: Or do they want to procrastinate more effectively?
Putitov: Maybe they aren’t ready to decide about that yet.
Un: The best we can do is to show the options.
Vulcan: Then Procrastinators can choose for themselves.
Putitov: When they get around to it.
Un: That’s an option. Put it off till later.
Vulcan: It is a choice.
Empath: The Procrastinators don’t need help in procrastinating. But they might like to feel better about it.
Un: To feel better about it, they should change the name to something that sounds better. Deliberate, for example, or cautious.
Vulcan: Changing the name does not change the thing. But it may change how people interpret it. Procrastination is a habit of delaying necessary action. But other terms present such a habit as useful. For example, deliberate or patient.
Hunter: When you put it that way, some famous hunters immediately come to mind. Gandhi and Martin Luther King are great examples of patience. But all successful hunters wait till they are ready.
Networker: The favorite sign of the Hunters is a leopard stalking.
Storyboarder: The leopard slides silently through the brush. Slowly. Patiently.
Hunter: The leopard understands that waiting is part of hunting.
Un: There is a time for stalking and a time for chasing. And a time for knowing what time it is.
Canter: You can’t make procrastination legitimate. You can’t encourage it.
Un: If you reverse procrastination, you get impulsiveness.
Shudoff: People should not procrastinate. People should not be impulsive.
Putitov: We are against impulsiveness. We will make no choice before its time. And when the timing works, it is not procrastination.
Vulcan: From that viewpoint, procrastination is simply an error in timing.
Canter: You can’t make procrastination good just by changing its name. Besides, you are ignoring the case against procrastination.
Un: You took the words right out of my mouth. An unsanitary way of holding a conversation.
Vulcan: We Vulcans are astounded that humans rely so much on language and yet use it so ineptly. The leopard is patient when patience is needed. It is quick when quickness is needed. But no part of this is procrastination.
Un: The key to effective procrastination is to get the timing right.
Vulcan: If the problem is a timing error, the solution would be more effective scheduling.
Head Starts Ratem
Can you get these tricks work for you?
Procrastinator’s League Memo
Thank you for your suggestions. We expect to consider them at a future meeting.
Your turn.
We hope you find the mulling of the Head Staff interesting. What’s important to you, however, is your answer. You know some members of the Procrastinator’s League. So imagine that representatives of this organization have finally gotten around to asking you what they could do about their procrastination.
They arrive in the theater of your mind breathless and apologetic. Sorry they are late, but something came up and there was a traffic jam, and…
Call in your Head Staff to mull over the problem. What would your staff recommend? Think of mulling as an opportunity for legitimate procrastination.While you procrastinate, plan.