Ok, even writing this is procrastination. I know it, but sometimes it helps to procrastinate, I am mulling over stuff in the back of my brain as I do other things. Things that are not necessarily the things I am supposed to do!
But I did accomplish quite a few objectives as I procrastinated.
- I wove in the ends of my Sunrise Sweater and then steam blocked it! I love my new steamer. It is hand held and is made by Rowenta and works like a hot damn. Much better than wet blocking for sweaters and small swatches.
- I did all of the finishing work on the Jingle Gnome Chapeau. And blogged about it.
- I replaced a cuff on one of my oldest sweaters. And blogged about it.
- I am about the half way point of my Clapotis shawl. I work on it in the evenings when I am too tired for anything that requires concentration.
- I am crap at leather work – there is a lot I need to learn before I can actually sew the leather wrist bindings to my sweater.
What am I procrastinating. My GreenMan Shawl, another sweater for myself, more class projects and samples and dealing with life in general. So maybe it is not so much procrastination as it is keeping myself too busy to concentrate on everything I have set for myself, or everything that I am trying to deal with emotionally. As I list them I am realizing that most of these things are self imposed, not really have to do – just expectation that I will do. Why? Because I always have. It is how I cope. I cope by being busy.
I once told my boss that I knit my emotions into my projects. It has been a hard year, lots of emotions, and apparently lots of projects. Hence many opportunities for procrastination.
I have always been a procrastinator. I work best with that little bit of pressure of time and deadlines. While at University I would do lots of research for projects, notes, cards, organizational lines of inquiry and lots of reading. Then I would stop, put away the work until about a week before the due date and then start writing. And it would always work, the ideas had coalesced while I “procrastinated” and worked on other projects.
It does not always work so well on tangible things, that can have tangible issues that require lots of time to fix. Though as a designer for Vogue Knitting, with their tight deadlines and sometimes challenging ideas… it worked. I loved working under that kind of pressure and producing things that I wasn’t quite sure (at first) that I could do. No time there for procrastination. I put what learned working for Vogue into practice when I designed for other companies, Buffalo Wool co. and Juniper Moon Farm for example.
So sometimes I feel the need to create that kind of pressure for myself, to push that time barrier into working as a creative pressure. So procrastination in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, though it can be if practiced improperly.
When procrastination is used as a tool to improve an outcome by first, recognizing the weakness, and then utilizing the weakness, making it work for you, not against you. Is that a form of justification? Probably. But we all have justifications for our actions, especially when they can be self destructive if practiced improperly!
Thoughts? Opinions? Are you procrastination by reading this? If so, I won’t tell! I am procrastinating myself! LOL!
Happy Procrastinating
Lynette
