Against (the very idea of) Procrastination
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EnglishPublication classification
JO3 Original Creative Works – Textual WorkScale
NTRO MinorResearch statement
Background This essay contributes to a field of humorous and literary creative nonfiction writing. It intervenes in a widespread public intellectual space, playfully and critically, to examine dominant discourses around time-management, efficiency, habit, goal-setting and intentionality, and the imprecisions that emerge here. It asks: why we are so convinced by and compliant with the paradigm (and associated discourse) that makes procrastination a valid notion at all for describing our lives and our efforts? Using philosophically-informed paradigms on time and agency, it engages further with a problematising of buzz-words and their widespread, uncritical uptake. Contribution This essay produces new knowledge & ways to articulate popular discourses on “procrastination”. Its methodology and ruse involves subtracting the term from usage to offer alternative ways to describe engagements with time & reframe creative approaches to tasks & challenges outside vocabularies of either/or. After philosophical work on creativity and practising (in the author’s TRO space), it makes available & extends this knowledge to international audiences. Using humour & theories on temporality/desire/action to challenge unrigorous conventions of practice, this essay provides clearer paradigms of creativity and agency to non-expert readers. Significance This essay continues my contributions to an international field of literary debate in the form of critical and accessible writing & was selected by editors at Literary Hub, with its enormous readership across US, Europe and beyond. Site comments and twitter comments from readers attested to its usefulness in interrupting debilitating discourses locked in a productivity/procrastination bind: ‘Just wow. This is such an awesome piece of deep, soulful philosophy.’ & ‘I can't believe I almost didn't read this. … But I did read it….it was brilliant, and many parts were laugh-out-loud funny. I live for funny stuff.’ … One reader noted its help to ‘overcome dread’.Publisher
Literary HubPlace of publication
New York, N.Y.Usage metrics
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