I (unsurprisingly) procrastinated while developing this essay. Writing is my passion, yet also the source of great apprehension. You can thank one of my parents, who would put off assignments until the day they were due, for this tendency. But I put off work with, instead, a productive mindset, and using that I realized that procrastination may instead be a good force for creativity and stress-reduction; a fitting justification for perceived stubbornness.

Procrastination induces creativity because of patience and divergent thinking. Every time I worked on a project, I would take the time to weigh my options and strategies, exploring new ideas and continuously revising. And I am no exception; a Wisconsin study by a professor named Jihae Shin showed that if people allow themselves to be distracted from a task, they have a 28% increase in creativity. Even more: for successful innovators like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, procrastination was a tool (Grant, Adam). Instead of hearing the same old story of “procrastination-induced laziness”, you could instead take away a more productive lesson: utilizing patience so you can submit a more developed, substantial product.

Procrastination helps me relieve stress from projects. A short time interval of playing video games isn’t a distraction. It's a relief, and your recharged brain is calm and ready to work again (Kmiec). Stress shrinks your prefrontal cortex, impairing reasonable judgement and decision-making (Murgia); this means, while you’re still eager to complete that assignment, that a short break of recreation can improve your work. In addition to mental and strategic health, stress can damage important senses like sight; in my case, feeling forced to finish an assignment on my computer made me fatigued and damaged my eyesight, and I’m still combating that problem. But looking away from the screen and doing assignments as late as possible while still meeting the deadline has been an adequate solution to my ordeal.

Procrastination has been ridiculed and loathed by every single individual - especially those who experience the urge in daily life. But instead, what if we try to turn that obstruction of productivity as a preservation of mental and physical faculties? We should never be so quick to deem a trait we dislike as something to fight; instead, if it can’t be removed, we should make good use out of that “weakness”.