The negatives of procrastinating are pretty obvious. You lose time, and with that potentially other resources, to work on or create something. The longer you hold off on actually progressing, the longer it will all take to actually get done. Plus, you will most likely lose interest and enthusiasm for what you were trying to accomplish, so then you will have to put in effort toward regaining what was lost and working back toward where you initially started. I don’t think I need to elaborate too heavily on why procrastination can be bad, but what about the good sides?

Obviously, if you have a set, hard deadline or expected metrics/numbers to hit by a certain point, procrastination is your enemy, and you should get to work. However, if there are no concrete parameters, procrastinating can be rather useful, especially for creative work. I cannot recall how many times a new idea or way to break a story have come to me while I was reading a book or watching an episode of something on Netflix or random YouTube channel or playing a few hours of a video game. Sometimes you just need to let your brain wander for a bit before the breakthrough comes.

The real trick is finding the balance between using and succumbing to procrastination. It’s a tight line you have to balance in order to still manage to progress while not getting burned out or losing too much time and opportunity. I’ll admit that it is still an effort on my part to do so. Still, I know that not allowing myself those moments of procrastination would be far worse in the long run.