Spending time with my family and partner - Is that procrastination?
February 19, 2021โข309 words
Reading time: 1-2 min
I chose to spend my past 2 nights barely sleeping to rush some important presentations and papers (with a pressing deadline). I spent a few days in the past week or two spending time with my family and with my partner. And a day playing video games and watching videos; traditionally 'unproductive' happenings.
Obviously, pulling out a couple of days for the sole purpose of not working or studying would have its consequences on my task and project queue in the following week. I crafted my own fate there. Would this be considered procrastination?
Or can I consider it a productive advancement in spending time with my family and partner? A period of productive resting? (A period of achieving video game goals?)
Perhaps itโs even productive use of my time, given that near deadlines, we finish our work extremely quickly?
Although I temporarily felt tired and awful those two days, maybe the net happiness gained was positive.
A few things comes to mind (for reference by my future self, for possible expansion):
- You are in control
- It's okay to procrastinate (see Henri Poincarรฉ)
- You're just resting your mind and body for those few days
- Your ability to produce high quality work extremely efficiently skyrockets near deadlines
- Parkinson's law (work fills the time alloted)
- Spending time with people is good; if anything it's more important than work
- There IS a deadline for spending time with people (their current selves mentally and biologically only stay their current selves in the current time; to experience their current selves, you have to spend time with their current selves, not their future selves, assuming they're still around)
- How do we measure productivity?
...