The fifth lesson learned from reading Austin Kleon’s Steal Like An Artist
Procrastination is often the result of not having the right systems in place.
Like a muscle, self-discipline can only be flexed and used for so long. Eventually, it will give out. This often leads to procrastination. A loss of focus. But sometimes, that’s precisely what you need when you’re creatively stuck.
Practicing Productive Procrastination
In Austin Kleon’s Steal Like An Artist, he talks about productive procrastination.
Productive procrastination is all about harnessing those moments of procrastination you face while trying to work on a task or project. Instead of fucking around and watching Reels/Shorts/TikToks for an hour and getting nothing done, Kleon proposes procrastinating with another project that you want to work on.
This is a perfect technique, if you want to call it that, when you are a multi-passionate creative spinning many plates.
It seems insane at first, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized that I actually practice productive procrastination all the time. I’ve written a few essays about time management — on how to time block and track your time.
Yet what happens when you time block but can’t create anything in that time frame you allocated for yourself?
Here is where the magic of productive procrastination lies.
When you cannot focus on your main project, instead of twiddling your thumbs or looking at your damn phone, consider jumping on another project. Make it easy to switch to that project. The key here is make sure this secondary, tertiary, or even quaternary project is a different project than the primary one you are working on.
I hadn’t realized that this is what I do when I find myself stuck, unable to work on the main project that I want to work on.
What’s so great about this technique, if you want to call it that, is it aligns with the goals of a multi-passionate creative. Having multiple plates spinning not only allows you to work on your lateral thinking but also to further your own creative passions. And that is what makes productive procrastination so potent as a practice.
In this way, you can practice multiple passions without giving up the things that make you happy. That is what ultimately matters. Using every trick and tool you have, you have to feed your multiple passions.
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