Procrastinating for Less Stress and Better Well-Being

While I previously wrote about overcoming procrastination here and here, there is an interesting holiday occurring this week that takes a very different view of things. At the beginning of each March, Procrastinators' Club of America encourages folks to celebrate National Procrastination Week, which is all about putting off important tasks.

I can hear you now... "What?!? Emily, have you lost your mind? Why would you encourage us to put off important tasks?" Well, there's much more to it than just putting off what must be done.

This week's holiday is absolutely not encouraging you to be lazy or develop self-destructive behavior; instead, the claim is that putting off such important tasks will open up time in your schedule for what activities could not be accomplished if you were working on completing those important tasks. That means time for exercising, meditating, doing your hobbies, grooving to some tunes or just resting. Refreshing, eh?

The philosophy behind National Procrastination Week directly reflects the concept that everything to which you say "yes" means there is something else to which you'll need to say "no". There are only 168 hours or 10,080 minutes in any given week; with the limited resource of time at your disposal, you have to pick and choose how you want to invest it. Taking a mental and emotional break from the "do, do, do" perspective of our society can decrease folks' stress and anxiety.

What are some activities on this week's schedule that you can put off or delay until later? What will you do with the newly available time that results?