Perhaps I might be forgiven, being in the age group that I am, for making a mountain out of a molehill and then considering the same as so insurmountable. Imagine, therefore, my surprise, a sense of magical exhilaration, when the other day I decided to, and was actually able to, solve a simple household problem with reasonable effort, an activity that I had held up for months together. The tendency to delay decisive actions, which I own up with some embarrassment in this particular case, is a pretty common trait known as procrastination.
While in the above case the problem posed could be resolved to one’s satisfaction, I am not sure that all kinds of small problems we face both in our day-to-day lives and the ‘larger’ problems of life in the realms of technology, environment and health as well as in the broader social, political, economic and cultural contexts can always, in a general way, be shown to possess happy or fair solutions. These may often be justifiably considered intractable and those called upon to make decisions may sometimes deserve, if not indulgence, at least some understanding for appearing to sit over these, from all concerned.
A decision to act may not always be easy, and the choices may not be clear-cut or comfortable. No matter whether it is a problem faced by an individual or by a community, difficulties in problem-solving are often associated with an inadequate or incomplete problem-definition that may happen sometimes in a typical real-life scenario due to lack of input information required and/or uncertainty in the available data.
The indecisiveness to act in a way so as to move towards a (if not ‘the’) solution may also occur when one has to make choices among multiple solution strategies, resulting in an outcome which, even though it includes a good and technically consistent solution to the original problem, makes the solution less worthy either because of excessive cost or because it could generate a still newer problem (a worrisome byproduct or an unanticipated side reaction).
If the problem-solving scenario is inherently collaborative in nature (as in the case of a big community or a public organisation) the decision-making cannot be done purely on the basis of individual judgment or preference. This might sometimes bring into play the social and even political determinants, quite apart from purely technical or scientific/technological considerations that probably would have decided the course of action for an individual or a private, close-knit organisation.
However, there is a belief (especially among many action-oriented people) that delaying decisive actions, even at the risk of failure or sub-optimal solutions, does not help in the long run and may actually compound the problem.
Is there anything at all that can be said in favour of the tendency to procrastinate? Surprising though it may sound, recently published research has shown that in any organisation the more creative workers/employees are those given to some degree of procrastination.
Imagine sitting on one of those metallic, pitiless grouted chairs outside a doctor’s chamber in a hospital pondering over a decision you are called upon to make regarding a critical and risky surgery for one of your close relatives that the doctor may have advised for a possible (and not necessarily guaranteed) recovery. Other relatives are of course around like shadows or across wires, tentatively chirping inane suggestions that only distract you.
You alone will have to make a decision to go ahead or seek a second opinion under a cruelly short time-frame across which the spectre of mortality or permanent debility hovers like a fog. Should you be bullied by the hospital or the doctor, the anxious relatives (potentially holding you responsible for any adverse consequences) and speedily sign the consent form?
Or should you just shut out all the noise and calmly go over all the pros and cons (dangerously coming close to being accused of procrastination) before choosing between actually signing and refusing to do so?
A friend of mine once wryly commented on being a witness to my frenetic activity (and a few minor accidents) in a chemistry laboratory, that perhaps the best way to speed up a process is to slow it down! This a veritable homily in praise of procrastination in an era where speed is worshipped.
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