We should all spend a little more time thinking about things without really doing them
So many things to do and so little time. Just as well Phil Brown has plenty of thinking time up his sleeve.
Artist Auguste Rodin had the right idea with his famous sculpture "The Thinker."(AP Photo/The Kansas City Star, David Eulitt)
My editor sent me a press release the other day. It was under the heading – Not Urgent: Australian Procrastinators Club to Be Launched Soon.
I had to laugh. Particularly since I have been meaning to write a column about this subject for some time but haven’t quite got around to it. True story.
I’m a man of action in some ways and I get things done. To a point. The old Jewish maxim …
“If not now, when?” is something I like to quote from time to time.
On the other hand, I procrastinate for Australia. I put things off on a daily, no, make that hourly basis. So, I was very interested to read about the Australian Procrastinators Club but the founder, who is slowly getting around to forming it, Hamish Thompson, has serious intent.
Thompson is a corporate publicist based in Tasmania. He believes we are rushing around in life getting too much done without taking the time to smell the roses. Procrastination could help us chill a bit. He’s thrilled that he can now gather like-minded people together with that in mind.
“Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something, so after the achievement of 17 years of planning, I’ve decided to make this club happen,” Thompson says.
“Little did I know that this day would finally arrive. I had planned to welcome delegates today but I’m a busy man and I hadn’t got round to inviting anyone. On the upside, the constitution of the club was voted through by a 100% majority.
One of his proposals is the creation of an eight-day week.
“By making the working week twenty percent longer, we feel that there’s an opportunity to make ourselves even more productive and give ideas a bit more time to breathe,” he says. “I have little doubt that these proposals will be widely welcomed by society once they are finalised. Procrastination has long been regarded as an affliction, but there is a growing body of clinical evidence that conscious procrastination can be beneficial in the creative process”.
I find this all rather empowering because I spend so much of my life putting off doing things. It’s a form of denial I think, a way of putting off the inevitable. There are so many things I have been meaning to do.
But I will get around to them one day. Chatting to Hamish Thompson we agree that there is no rush in life. Broadly speaking there is, in the end, time for everything. Eventually.
I have a jazz CD by the actor Viggo Mortensen and it is entitled Time Waits for Everyone. This leads me to think that Mortensen may, in fact, be a procrastinator too.
I must listen to that CD again. The thing is once I do that it’s done and finished. Whereas by simply meaning to listen to it I can enjoy a period of anticipation that is quite enjoyable in itself. Meaning to do things is often more fulfilling than actually doing them.
If you want more information about the Australian Procrastinators Club, I will give you the website and I know you will get around to looking at it … in your own time.
