For many years, society has frowned upon procrastination. If you are seen to procrastinate you are automatically labeled as lazy without consideration, but does procrastinating make you lazy and is procrastination even bad for you? Well, pieces of research, new and old, shatter the concept of procrastination as a bad thing and advocate for it being good.
Some scientists say that there are two types of procrastination: active and passive, active being invested in an inconsequential act like sharpening pencils and passive being completely immobile and binging three Netflix series instead of writing an English presentation. The distinction between the two shows that not all types of procrastination is bad, but not all are good either.
Procrastination can teach you about managing delay. Greek philosophers conceptualised this theory and said procrastination teaches you to pick the right time to act, regarding procrastinating a good thing. It also informs the right choice for a decision, as since you are delaying, there is more time to think about what to do and look at things from different angles.
On the other hand, procrastination does have its cons. Research from Case Western Reserve University found that students who were procrastinators performed worse academically, had increased illness and higher levels of stress; evidently not beneficial for anyone's lives.
Although procrastination has been proven both beneficial and bad, there is nothing wrong if you do procrastinate, frequently or almost never, as a study from Gustavson et al. mentioned that procrastination is heritable and in our gene-makeup, meaning it is not a 'choice' we, as humans, subconsciously make.
Overall, the message that should be conveyed is that procrastination isn't anything to be ashamed of, and sometimes it can be useful for the full and busy lives we lead.
