I’m Not Resting, I’m Creating: The Power of Positive Procrastination

By John Rayburn

LEARN THE ART OF PRODUCTIVE PROCRASTINATION

 

Put more razzamatazz in your life with some sizzling ideas on how to handle time to your benefit and personal satisfaction.

 

The author interviewed clinical psychologists, governmental leaders, and successful business people to arrive at ways and means of making the clock work more favorably for you.

 

The slogan of the National Procrastinator's Club is "Don't wait. Procrastinate NOW." Wise observations from da Vinci, Churchill, Einstein, Ovid, Sandburg, and others agree putting off in POSITIVE fashion can boost your success and happiness.

 

Since the 1700s we've been plagued by Lord Chesterfield's admonition, "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today." This text thumbs its nose at that with methods of managing time without letting it manage you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wordwooze Publishing
• Release date: May 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223991441

Book preview

I’m Not Resting, I’m Creating

The Power of POSITIVE Procrastination

John Rayburn

Wordwooze Publishing

wordwooze.com

© 2019 by John Rayburn

All rights reserved

Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without written permission from the author or publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission is punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Cover by Margaret Loftin-Whiting

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

AN APOLOGY

I should have written this book much sooner. By so doing, I might have been of at least some benefit in helping you make your way past life’s little obstacles; helping you more easily launch your ship of ideas; and lessening the impact of conflicting theories about everyday events and problems that are prevalent on this mundane sphere of ours.

However, a lot of negative procrastination barred my path. Please forgive me.

PREFACE, FOREWORD, INTRODUCTION, PROLOGUE: WHICH ONE IS WHICH?

Sometime or other I’ll look it up, but not yet.

A partial premise of this book can be summed up by something that happened when I was about 12 years old. My chore for the day was to mow the lawn, a task made abhorrent not by the fact that it was a relatively tough job with a push mower, but simply because it was a task.

No progress was being made because I was comfortably stretched out under a shade tree in the back yard. My mother, in an attempt to forestall any fatherly remonstrance, decided on a course of action. She ventured forth into my arena of repose and suggested a perfectly reasonable solution to the dilemma.

Why not, she proposed, work on the lawn for 15 minutes, then rest for 15 minutes? Keep it up and the first thing you know, the job will be done.

That seemed to be a sensible method of washing down the unpalatable, so I concurred. Shortly thereafter, however, my mother glanced out the kitchen window and saw me still at ease. She called, Hey, I thought we had a deal.

I contentedly replied, "We do. I’m just resting the first 15 minutes."

If that youthful understanding of the benefits of lassitude didn’t provide early qualifications to write a book about procrastination, then my wife is wrong in her assumption that I’m perfect for the part.

However, you know as well as I do (even if neither of us will admit it) that the above is an example of negative procrastination, and that’s not to be the subject here.

The primary aim is to discuss the small amount of personal quality time available for most of us and to present a new way of looking at this universal commodity. It may be construed as a perhaps outlandish means of managing time, but the basic notion is to not let time manage you.

Why don’t we all "rest the first 15" and then get started?

CHAPTER 1

A CHESTERFIELD ISN’T JUST A SEMI-FITTED TOPCOAT WITH A VELVET COLLAR

It all began with a letter to a broad spectrum of individuals in many parts of the world; a letter written on the concept that the worst thing that could happen to it would be a deposit in the nearest round file. Fortunately, there were a great many answers, and you’ll be made privy to the responses as we go our merry way. Here’s what got the collective attention.

"Dear Whomever:

Since the 1700s, mankind has been plagued by Lord Chesterfield’s admonition, ‘Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.’

Based on the theory that many people are incapable of immediate decision or action in most situations, I am preparing a manuscript on the power of positive procrastination.

High level individuals in government, education, sports, religion, entertainment, business, and other fields are being contacted for personal examples or observations.

Would you be so kind as to inform us of a situation in which you feel, in retrospect, you might have been wiser to temporize, dawdle, hold in abeyance, or let sleeping dogs lie? Or, on the other hand, an incident where you did lie fallow with planned or unplanned laissez-faire and it proved to be beneficial?

If neither of the above, just your thoughts on the subject would be appreciated. They can be serious, humorous, philosophical, argumentative, or off the wall.

A slight dilatory response will be understood and acceptable, but please don’t dilly-dally overlong, because I will be starting the book within the next month…or so."

I had the unmitigated gall to send a copy to then-His Holiness Pope John Paul II, and a reply came back from the Secretariat of State of the Vatican. It came as no surprise when I was told it isn’t possible for the Pope to reply personally to all the letters he receives. Nevertheless, the closing line was encouraging.

"I am pleased, however, to inform you that His Holiness invokes upon you God’s abundant blessings.

Sincerely yours,

Monsignor G.B. Re

Assessor"

It is my natural assumption that includes this book. If so, it is certainly one of the few (if any) other tomes with a papal blessing.

Hang on to that thought, because now we’re going to get back to old man Chesterfield and put him in his place just so you can get an early understanding about the need to debunk that business of never putting anything off until tomorrow. If we can show you how full of baloney he was on another subject, it’s very likely you’ll understand the need for adopting a more up-to-date mode of operation.

Philip Dormer Stanhope, the Fourth Earl of Chesterfield, was born in 1694 and died in 1773. He was basically a dramatist and statesman who had no qualms whatsoever about letting people know what they should and should not do. Hence, the bit about procrastination. Virtually every time management expert since then has echoed the same thought, with thousands of variations on the theme. In case you haven’t noticed, there have been a few changes since the 1700s, but we’ve been stuck with old Phil’s axiom no matter what.

I call your attention to a couple of other things he had to say, about two and a half centuries or so ago.

In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill bred, as audible laughter.

As though that weren’t enough, he followed the same line in delineating his own character.

I am neither of a melancholy nor a cynical disposition, and am as willing and as apt to be pleased as anybody: but I am sure that, since I have the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh.

Of course, standards were different way back then. Perhaps he was right at the time in his stand against audible reactions to humor