Confessions of a Procrastinator

It is with a heavy heart and deferred responsibility that I announce to the world; I am a procrastinator. 

While I strategically wait until the last moment to act on the tasks piled on my plate, the work produced under pressure feels more authentic than the work assembled gradually over time. With my end products being good enough and receiving positive response, is procrastinating truly my handicap? 

I pride myself on utilizing references as much as possible for topics like this. However, as I was conducting research, the articles worth citing all fell behind paywalls that showcased an ugly side to my procrastination; procrastinating signing up for the NYTimes and Wall Street Journal. Which I still haven’t done. So enjoy a whirlwind of anecdotal experiences and observations without any works cited!

Here are my confessions as a procrastinator:

My procrastination allows me to offer grace to my colleagues, who often ask for deadlines to be pushed back. Grant writers routinely create arbitrary deadlines for colleagues to provide information by, a date that we back-date from the grant’s submission deadline. This process allows for adequate time for brainstorming, editing, and creating new materials, if necessary. Or, if you’re like me, this process leaves time for procrastination. Just enough time to get back on track and produce an end product worthy of funding. It will never go without emphasis that being a great colleague to work with is well worth your time and effort. Stressful work environments are only worsened by passive aggression, constant reminders, and inflexibility towards each other.

With high-pressure, program-specific work on the plates of my colleagues, I believe that my own procrastination is a welcome approach for the team. 

Aware of my tendency to procrastinate, I prioritize tasks that can be done immediately over those that require more time. This means that emails, project management tasks, logging information in the CRM, and gathering materials can all happen immediately, even whilst grant deadlines are looming over my head. In an effort to beat these tendencies, tackling them right away is the perfect compliment to the longer projects that can handle procrastination. 

Prioritization is key for procrastinators - identify what can happen now without much effort and just do it!

Procrastination allows me time and space to consider all sides of the equation - new information can enter the process without hiccup and that’s cool! My dad, who’s also a procrastinator, once told me; “I hold off on making decisions because I want to walk around with a few options in my head. When new information presents itself I want to consider it.” This FUELED my procrastination tendencies. I, too, want to consider all of the new information that enters my noggin from the time I start a new grant to the time I hit submit. Especially as a staff grant writer, I get to write with a conversational approach because I am so close to the work that I’m writing about. Contracted grant writers don’t have the same luxury and need to utilize a more technical approach for the sake of consistency and time management. 

Procrastination welcomes new information seamlessly into the end product and it’s important to accommodate newness!

And lastly, but certainly not least, procrastination can be a life saver. Or, if you work in the nonprofit sector like me, a time saver (which feels like much of the same). Sometimes, I will start a new grant and hold off spending much time on writing the thing until the arbitrary deadline I created for myself begins to approach. Then I’ll head back into the work, double checking the submission portal and my own process document. More often than I care to admit, through this practice I discover new things about the funding opportunity, sometimes even that the program or organization I’m writing for is ineligible for funding. Without spending too much time or effort on the proposal, I get to take it off my to-do list and recalibrate. 

Procrastination can lead to a release of your time - the thing that you thought would be a big lift ends up being not a lift at all. Could be worse!

While I write this article to confess my regular procrastination, I’m keenly aware of the negative connotations of waiting until the last moment. Feel free to call me lazy, entitled, and slow. Perhaps THOSE are truly my handicaps. However, I find that working within my strengths has actually proven to be the most productive. By giving grace to my colleagues, prioritizing immediate tasks, considering new information until a submission deadline, and being ok with not putting a ton of effort into a new grant at the jump, I believe I’ve found a way to make my procrastination a superpower.